Azione!Lab

A warm, editorial single-page website for a contemporary theatre workshop. Wagtail provides an editor-friendly headless CMS, Astro renders the public site, PostgreSQL stores content, and Docker Compose supplies a reproducible local environment.

Architecture

backend/: Django and Wagtail admin, content models, media uploads, and the aggregate read-only API at GET /api/site/home/.
frontend/: Astro components, responsive design system, typed API adapter, and Italian fallback content for development when the CMS is unavailable.
nginx/: reverse-proxy virtual host for azionelab.org, routing public requests to Astro or Wagtail.
db: persistent PostgreSQL database.
Docker volumes: postgres_data for the database and media_data for uploads.

See the architecture document, ADR-0001, and ADR-0002 for the rationale.

Prerequisites

Docker Engine with Docker Compose v2.
Ports 8080, 4321, and 8000 available on localhost.
A local hosts-file entry mapping azionelab.org to 127.0.0.1.

No host Python or Node.js installation is required.

Start locally

cp .env.example .env
docker compose up --build -d
docker compose ps
docker compose exec backend python manage.py seed_demo

For local domain resolution, add this line to /etc/hosts using your normal system administration workflow:

127.0.0.1 azionelab.org

Open:

public site: http://azionelab.org:8080
Wagtail admin: http://azionelab.org:8080/admin/
aggregate API: http://azionelab.org:8080/api/site/home/

Direct loopback ports 4321 and 8000 remain available for local diagnostics only.

The frontend remains usable with curated fallback content if the API is unavailable. On first startup the backend applies migrations and collects static files before starting Gunicorn. Wait until all four services report healthy.

Create an editor account

docker compose exec backend python manage.py createsuperuser

Demo content

The seed command is idempotent and creates or updates the initial home page, site settings, participation cards, teacher, lessons, shows, gallery entries, and local placeholder images:

docker compose exec backend python manage.py seed_demo

Re-run it only when you intentionally want to restore the demo records. Content edited after seeding may be overwritten for records managed by the command.

Editing content

Open Wagtail admin and select Pages to edit the home hero, introduction, laboratory section, and the three participation cards.
Select Settings > Site settings for the workshop name and contact details.
Use Snippets for the teacher, lessons, shows, and gallery.
Publish page changes. Snippet and settings changes are returned immediately by the aggregate endpoint.

The frontend reads PUBLIC_CMS_API_URL; inside Compose it defaults to http://backend:8000. Media URLs use WAGTAILADMIN_BASE_URL so browsers receive the public reverse-proxy address. Change both values for another environment. The standard published-page endpoint is also available at /api/v2/pages/.

The PostgreSQL service is named db. Existing .env files should replace @postgres: with @db: in DATABASE_URL; a compatibility network alias keeps older local values working during the transition.

Useful commands

# Follow application logs
docker compose logs -f db backend frontend proxy

# Run database migrations
docker compose exec backend python manage.py migrate

# Run all required checks in containers
docker compose run --rm backend python manage.py test
docker compose run --rm frontend npm run check
docker compose run --rm frontend npm run build
docker compose run --rm proxy nginx -t
docker compose config --quiet

# Stop the stack without deleting content
docker compose down

# Stop and permanently delete local database and uploaded media
docker compose down --volumes

The final command is destructive. It is useful only when intentionally resetting the local environment; run the seed command again after the next startup.

Directory structure

.
├── backend/                # Wagtail/Django CMS and API
├── frontend/               # Astro public website
├── nginx/                  # Reverse-proxy virtual host
├── docs/                   # Architecture, operations, security, and ADRs
├── docker-compose.yml
├── .env.example
└── README.md

Database and media backups

Database rows and uploaded files must be backed up together:

mkdir -p backups/media
docker compose stop frontend backend
docker compose exec -T db sh -c 'pg_dump -U "$POSTGRES_USER" "$POSTGRES_DB"' > backups/database.sql
docker compose cp backend:/app/media/. backups/media/
docker compose start backend frontend

This brief maintenance window keeps database rows and uploaded files in sync. See operations for the destructive restore procedure and its cautions. Do not commit database dumps, .env, or uploaded media.

Production TODOs

This repository deliberately targets a simple, working local deployment. Before a public production launch, add TLS certificates, production-grade static/media serving, off-host backups, monitoring, and a deployment-specific secret manager.

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