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Set up Certo locally

Certo is a Strapi backend + Nuxt frontend stack. The local development flow is straightforward: install dependencies, configure environment variables, start the backend, then start the frontend.

Step 1

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 18-22.x for local development
  • npm 6+ for package management
  • A running PostgreSQL instance for production-oriented local testing, or SQLite for simpler setups

Step 2

Clone and install

  • Clone the repo and install the frontend + backend dependencies
  • cd certo/src/frontend && npm install
  • cd ../backend && npm install

Step 3

Run the stack

  • Start the backend from src/backend
  • npm run develop
  • In another terminal, start the frontend
  • cd src/frontend && npm run dev

Example setup commands 

cd certo
cd src/frontend && npm install
cd ../backend && npm install

# Start backend
cd ../backend && npm run develop

# Start frontend in another terminal
cd ../frontend && npm run dev

Default app behavior

On first run, the development backend seeds sample data for testing, including the default admin account and example certificate content. The project docs describe the default login credentials and expected sample data in more detail, which is useful before you start issuing credential workflows.