Metropolis

Metropolis is an extended version of the Polis collective-response tool. So far, we have implemented:

• A unified React frontend using hooks, replacing three separate frontends in the original version of Polis.
• A simpler response interface which supports all functionality present in the original interface.

In the near future, we expect to implement:

• A new machine learning and AI analysis toolchain.
• Open data, where all Polis interactions are signed by either a custodial or non-custodial keypair.
• Support for multiple authenticated-data standards, SSO providers, and decentralized identity providers.

Development

Setting up dependencies:

We recommend installing nvm so that you can easily switch between your favorite flavors of node.

• Node >= 16
• NPM >= 8

If using nvm, run the commands below to install node and the application dependencies.

nvm install 18
nvm use 18
npm install

Setting up locally:

1. Install Postgres, through Postgres.app (Mac) or your package manager. Also install Java and Clojure for the math worker.

brew install --cask temurin
brew install clojure/tools/clojure

2. From a psql console run:

create database "polis-dev";
create user "polis-dev";
alter role "polis-dev" superuser;

3. Setup environment variables:

cp example.env .env
cd server
cp example.env .env

4. Run all database migrations before starting:

cat server/postgres/migrations/* | psql polis-dev

5. Install dependencies and run. This will start the client on port 8080, server on port 8040, and run the math worker:

npm install
npm run dev

6. To access the site in development mode: http://localhost:8080/createuser

Production Deployment

1. To run the app in production mode locally, use npm run start, and go to http://localhost:8040.

2. To run the app on Heroku, set up the Heroku CLI and then set up plugins:

heroku buildpacks:add heroku/clojure
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:mini
heroku addons:create sendgrid:starter
heroku config:set MATH_ENV=prod
heroku config:set NODE_OPTIONS="--max_old_space_size=2560"
heroku config:set SENDGRID_API_KEY=[your sendgrid api key]
heroku config:set POLIS_FROM_ADDRESS="Admin <[email protected]>"
heroku config:set DOMAIN_OVERRIDE=[your domain]
heroku config:set EMBED_SERVICE_HOSTNAME=[your domain]
heroku config:set ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD_00001=[a new password]
git push heroku main

To send password reset emails, configure Sendgrid with a single sender identity from within the Sendgrid control panel. Then, set that email address and the Sendgrid API key in server/.env.

To enable login with Github, configure a Github application at https://github.com/settings/apps and provide the client ID and client secret at server/.env. For a development environment, the callback should be: http://localhost:8080/api/v3/github_oauth_callback

3. To run all migrations on production, or to run one specific migration:

cat server/postgres/migrations/* | heroku psql
cat server/postgres/migrations/000000_initial.sql | heroku psql

4. You may wish to set a custom domain name and Heroku SSL on production. This can be done in the Heroku control panel.

Terminology

• uid: User ID
• xid: External ID (for a user)
• pid: Participant ID (specific to a conversation)
• zid: Conversation ID
• tid: Statement ID
• bid: Base Cluster ID

Troubleshooting

In case a server isn't starting on the right port, check your currently running processes (ps) and make sure those ports aren't taken by other services.

Acknowledgements

This platform is based on the Polis platform developed by the Computational Democracy Project. For the Polis codebase, see Github. For a Polis methods paper, see Polis: Scaling Deliberation by Mapping High Dimensional Opinion Spaces.

(c) 2012-present, authors, under AGPLv3 with additional permission under section 7