The Iron Codex

A mobile-friendly React and Node.js history app focused on medieval Europe from 476 to 1453.

Features

• Random history articles on the home page
• Chronological medieval events
• Medieval kingdoms, cities, and towns
• People profiles with biography sections
• Historical artifacts
• Responsive red, gold, black, and silver visual design

Run Locally

npm run install:all
npm run build
npm start

Open http://localhost:4000.

Authentication Environment

IronCodex supports email/password accounts, Google sign-in, signed HTTP-only session cookies, and a protected Favorites shell.

Copy .env.example to .env for local development:

cp .env.example .env

Required for production and recommended locally:

AUTH_SESSION_SECRET="replace-with-a-long-random-secret"
AUTH_BASE_URL="https://your-domain.example"

Optional:

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID="your-google-oauth-client-id"
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET="your-google-oauth-client-secret"
CORS_ORIGIN="https://your-domain.example"
AUTH_USERS_FILE="/absolute/path/to/users.json"

For Google OAuth, create a Google OAuth web client and add this authorized redirect URI:

https://your-domain.example/api/auth/google/callback

For local development, use:

http://localhost:4000/api/auth/google/callback

The local user store defaults to server/data/users.json, which is ignored by Git.