UF r/place

A modern, extensible r/place clone designed specifically for the University of Florida campus community. Built with AWS serverless architecture and Next.js, this project allows students to collaboratively create pixel art on a shared canvas.

🏗️ Project Structure

This monorepo contains:

• infra/: AWS CDK infrastructure (API Gateway + Lambda functions)
• web/: Next.js frontend application with modern React patterns

📖 Getting Started

For complete setup instructions, visit the Wiki

Quick Setup

1. Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, AWS account, AWS CLI
2. Install: npm install
3. Configure: Set up AWS credentials and create .env files
4. Deploy: npm run cdk:bootstrap then npm run cdk:deploy
5. Run: npm run dev

📚 Documentation

• Getting Started Guide - Complete setup walkthrough
• AWS Configuration - Detailed AWS setup
• Project Overview - Architecture and design
• Extensibility Guide - Adding new features

🛠️ Technologies

• Frontend: Next.js 14, React 18, TypeScript
• Backend: AWS Lambda, API Gateway, CDK
• Infrastructure: AWS CDK, CloudFormation
• Development: npm workspaces, ESLint, esbuild

🏛️ Architecture

UF_r-place/
├── infra/              # AWS Infrastructure
│   ├── bin/app.ts     # CDK app entry point
│   ├── lib/           # CDK constructs and stacks
│   └── lambda/        # Lambda function handlers
└── web/               # Next.js Frontend
    ├── app/          # App Router pages and components
    └── .env.local    # Environment configuration

🚀 Development

The project uses modern development practices:

• AWS CDK for infrastructure as code
• Next.js App Router for modern React patterns
• TypeScript throughout the stack
• Serverless architecture for scalability and cost efficiency
• npm workspaces for monorepo management

🎓 Educational Purpose

This project is designed for the UF Open Source Club community, emphasizing:

• Learning AWS serverless architecture
• Modern React and Next.js patterns
• Infrastructure as Code with CDK
• Collaborative development workflows

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions from the UF community! The architecture is designed to be:

• Simple - Easy to understand and modify
• Extensible - Straightforward to add new features
• Cost-effective - Runs within AWS Free Tier
• Educational - Great for learning modern web development

📞 Support

• Check the Wiki documentation for detailed guides
• Review existing code in infra/ and web/ directories
• Ask questions in the UF Open Source Club community

Next Steps

• Add more constructs (DynamoDB, WebSocket API, S3, ALB) under infra/lib/constructs
• Wire new endpoints to Lambda functions under infra/lambda and expose them via API Gateway
• Consume new endpoints in the Next.js app (web/app/...) via fetch(${process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL}your-route)

Notes

• The API is deployed with CORS enabled for GET to simplify local development. Tighten this as needed in production.
• infra uses aws-lambda-nodejs to bundle TypeScript Lambdas with esbuild automatically.
• Next.js is configured with the App Router. Config is in web/next.config.mjs.