DRC Halloween 2026 — costume contest voting

Voting site for the Douglas Research Centre Halloween costume contest, at https://halloween2026.douglasneuroinformatics.ca. Brought to you by the DNP. Ideally it will be generalizable for other such events.

Design: SPEC.md. Progress: TASKS.md.

Stack

Node 24 runs the TypeScript directly (type stripping, no build step). Hono for HTTP, server-rendered HTML, built-in node:sqlite, nodemailer over SMTP (Scaleway Transactional Email). Login is a 6-digit code sent to an institutional email address.

Develop

npm install
cp .env.example .env    # set MAIL_TRANSPORT=console, BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000,
                        # DATA_DIR=./data, SESSION_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 48)
npm run dev             # codes are printed to the terminal
npm test
npm run typecheck

To try the open phase before the contest, set OPEN_AT to a past time in .env.

Test entries

Drop image files into images/test-entries/ to pre-populate the gallery:

images/test-entries/
  individual/     ← one image per entry (category: individual)
  team/           ← one image per entry (category: group)

On startup the app scans these folders, processes each image through the normal photo pipeline (resize, WebP, strip metadata), and inserts it as a pre-approved entry. The entry name comes from the filename (e.g. tom.png → "Tom"). Each entry gets a synthetic owner (test-<file>@test.invalid), so seeding is idempotent — restarting won't duplicate entries.

The images/test-entries/ directory is gitignored. To use it:

mkdir -p images/test-entries/individual images/test-entries/team
cp ~/photos/alice.png images/test-entries/individual/
cp ~/photos/team-photo.jpg images/test-entries/team/
npm run dev

In Docker, mount or copy the images into the container's images/test-entries/ before starting. They are only read at startup.

Deploy (DNP server)

Step by step for the sysadmin, including the test round, launch (scripts/reset.sh) and teardown: DEPLOY.md.

Landing page

The landing page is the organizers' index.html (with landing.js, images/ and fonts/), served at /. The app turns its two buttons on as the contest moves along. Edit it like any static page, then rebuild the container.

Deliverability test

Before the contest, check that the login emails reach institutional inboxes:

docker compose run --rm app node scripts/send-test.ts [email protected] [email protected]

Each recipient reports arrival time and whether the email landed in Junk.

Before the DNS records exist, --verify checks the SMTP port and credentials without sending anything:

node --env-file=.env scripts/send-test.ts --verify

To log in before the contest opens, put the address in ADMIN_EMAILS or PREVIEW_EMAILS.

License

MIT