Quick Start Guide

Get the Vantrexia Remote Patient Monitoring platform running on your local machine in under 5 minutes. This guide uses Docker Compose to spin up the entire stack — backend API, frontend dashboard, PostgreSQL database, and Redis cache — with a single command.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following tools are installed on your machine before proceeding:

Step 1: Clone the Repository

Clone the Vantrexia monorepo from GitHub and navigate into the project directory:

git clone https://github.com/highlandpc/Vantrexia.git
cd Vantrexia

Step 2: Configure Environment Variables

Copy the example environment files for the backend and frontend. The defaults are pre-configured for local development:

# Copy the root environment template
cp .env.example .env

# Edit .env and set the required values:
# SECRET_KEY, POSTGRES_PASSWORD, REDIS_PASSWORD

The .env file at the project root is required. At minimum, set SECRET_KEY, POSTGRES_PASSWORD, and REDIS_PASSWORD. The frontend reads VITE_API_BASE_URL from the docker-compose environment. See the Configuration Guide for details on every variable.

Step 3: Start All Services

Launch the full stack using Docker Compose. This will pull the required images, build the application containers, and start all services:

docker compose up -d

This starts the following services:

First-time startup takes 2–4 minutes depending on your internet connection. Subsequent starts are much faster due to cached Docker layers.

Step 4: Run Migrations & Create Superuser

The backend container automatically runs migrations and creates default roles on startup via start.sh. To create your admin account:

# Create a superuser for the admin panel
docker compose exec backend python manage.py createsuperuser

Follow the prompts to set your admin email, username, and password. This account gives you full access to the Django admin panel and all API endpoints.

Step 5: Verify the Installation

Confirm everything is running by checking the application endpoints:

Health Check

curl http://localhost:8000/health/

Expected response (HTTP 200 if all checks pass):

{
  "DatabaseBackend": "working",
  "CacheBackend": "working"
}

A more detailed status is available at /api/v1/monitoring/health/ and /api/v1/monitoring/status/.

Access the Applications

Get a JWT Token

Authenticate against the API to obtain an access token for testing endpoints:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/v1/auth/login/ \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "admin@yourpractice.com", "password": "your-password"}'

The response includes a tokens object with access (valid for 15 minutes) and refresh (valid for 1 day) tokens. Use the access token in the Authorization: Bearer <token> header for subsequent API requests. If 2FA is enabled for the user, a totp_token field is also required.

Stopping Services

To stop all running containers without removing data:

# Stop services (preserves data volumes)
docker compose stop

# Or stop and remove containers (preserves data volumes)
docker compose down

# Stop and remove everything including data volumes
docker compose down -v

Next Steps

Now that Vantrexia is running locally, here are the recommended next steps: