Penn Clubs

Official platform for club discovery, recruitment, and events at Penn. React/Next.js frontend and Django-based REST API.

Installation

You will need to start both the backend and the frontend to develop on Penn Clubs. Clubs supports Mac and Linux/WSL development.

Questions? Check out our extended guide for FAQs.

Backend

Running the backend requires uv running Python 3.13.

In production, you will need to set the following environment variables:

• NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_NAME (optional, defaults to clubs)
• SECRET_KEY
• SENTRY_URL
• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
• AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME
• LABS_REDIRECT_URI
• LABS_CLIENT_ID (from Platform)
• LABS_CLIENT_SECRET (from Platform)

To run the server, cd to the folder where you cloned penn-clubs. Then run:

• cd backend

Setting up psycopg2 on Mac (this is necessary if you want to be able to modify dependencies, you can revisit later if not)

• $ brew install postgresql
• $ brew install openssl
• $ brew unlink openssl && brew link openssl --force
• $ echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl@3/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
• $ export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl@3/lib"
• $ export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl@3/include"

Now, you can run

• $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gcc python3.13-dev libpq-dev for necessary Python package build dependencies (Linux only)
• $ uv sync to install Python dependencies. This may take a few minutes. If you skipped installing psycopg2 earlier, you might see an error with locking -- this is expected!
• $ uv run pre-commit install
• $ uv run ./manage.py migrate
• $ uv run ./manage.py populate (in development, to populate the database with dummy data)
• $ uv run ./manage.py runserver

Use $ uv run ./manage.py test to run unit tests.

Frontend

Running the frontend requires Node.js and Bun.

Please ensure you are using Node 20. Our codebase does not support other versions of Node (v20.11.1 is stable).

You will need to set the following environment variables on the frontend in production:

• NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_API_KEY
• NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_NAME (Optional)
  • Specify clubs to show Penn Clubs and fyh to show Hub@Penn.

1. Enter the frontend directory with a new terminal window. Don't kill your backend server!
2. Install dependencies using bun install in the project directory.
3. Run application using bun dev.
4. Access application at http://localhost:3000.

Development

Click Login to log in as a test user. The ./manage.py populate command creates a test user for you with username bfranklin and password test. Go to /api/admin to login to this account.

Ticketing

To test ticketing locally, you will need to install mkcert, enter the frontend directory, and run the following commands:

• $ mkcert -install
• $ mkcert localhost 127.0.0.1 ::1
• $ export DOMAIN=https://localhost:3001 NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0

Then, after the frontend is running, run bun run ssl-proxy in a new terminal window and access the application at https://localhost:3001.