My Dev Deck

A comprehensive toolkit of developer utilities built with modern web technologies

🎯 Vision

My Dev Deck is a collection of essential development tools that developers commonly need during application development. Instead of relying on multiple third-party services, this project provides self-hosted alternatives that give you full control over your development workflow.

🛠️ Tools

DevInbox ✅ Production Ready

A Mailinator-like email testing service for developers. Create projects with unique subdomains and capture all emails sent to any address under that subdomain.

Features:

• ✅ Project-based email isolation with subdomain routing (e.g., anything@myproject.devinbox.local)
• ✅ Full SMTP server receiving emails on port 2525
• ✅ Web dashboard to view and manage emails
• ✅ Support for HTML/text emails with multiple view modes
• ✅ Attachment handling with download functionality
• ✅ Email pagination and auto-refresh
• ✅ Mark emails as read/unread
• ✅ Complete REST API with Swagger documentation
• ✅ PostgreSQL database with Prisma ORM
• ✅ Docker setup for easy deployment
• ✅ No external dependencies - fully self-hosted

Status: 🚀 MVP Complete & Production Ready

Live Features:

• Create unlimited projects with unique slugs
• Each project gets its own email subdomain (e.g., user@myproject.devinbox.local)
• Real-time email reception via SMTP
• Beautiful web interface with email inbox UI
• View email details with HTML/text rendering
• Download attachments
• Project management (create, view, update, delete)
• RESTful API for programmatic access

Future Tools

More developer utilities coming soon! Ideas include:

• Webhook testing and debugging
• File sharing and temporary storage
• API mocking and testing
• And more...

🏗️ Project Structure

This is a Turborepo monorepo using pnpm workspaces:

my-dev-deck/
├── apps/
│   ├── web/          # Next.js dashboard (main UI)
│   ├── docs/         # Next.js documentation site
│   └── api/          # NestJS backend API
├── packages/
│   ├── ui/           # Shared React components with Tailwind CSS
│   ├── eslint-config/       # Shared ESLint configuration
│   ├── typescript-config/   # Shared TypeScript configs
│   └── tailwind-config/     # Shared Tailwind/PostCSS config
└── ...

Tech Stack

• Frontend: Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, Tailwind CSS 4
• Backend: NestJS, PostgreSQL, Prisma
• Monorepo: Turborepo, pnpm workspaces
• Language: TypeScript
• Testing: Jest (API), Playwright (planned for E2E)

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18
• pnpm >= 10.19.0
• PostgreSQL (for backend features)

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/my-dev-deck.git
cd my-dev-deck

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

Development

# Run all apps in development mode
pnpm dev

# Run specific app
pnpm --filter web dev       # Dashboard (http://localhost:4001)
pnpm --filter docs dev      # Docs (http://localhost:4002)
pnpm --filter api start:dev # API (http://localhost:4000, SMTP: 2525)

Building

# Build all apps and packages
pnpm build

# Build specific app
pnpm --filter web build
pnpm --filter api build

Testing

# Run tests
pnpm --filter api test

# Run tests with coverage
pnpm --filter api test:cov

# Type checking
pnpm check-types

# Linting
pnpm lint

🐳 Docker Setup

Full Docker Compose setup is available for local development and production deployment.

# Start all services (PostgreSQL + API + Web)
docker-compose up

# Start with docs (uses profile)
docker-compose --profile full up

# Build images
docker-compose build

# Stop all services
docker-compose down

# Stop and remove volumes (clean slate)
docker-compose down -v

Services:

• postgres: PostgreSQL 16 database on port 5432
• api: NestJS backend on ports 4000 (HTTP) and 2525 (SMTP)
• web: Next.js dashboard on port 4001
• docs: Next.js documentation on port 4002 (optional, use --profile full)

All development files are volume-mounted for hot reload. See docker-compose.yml for configuration details.

🌐 Deployment Options

DevInbox is production-ready and can be deployed to various platforms. Here are the recommended free and self-hosted options:

Option 1: Railway.app (Recommended for Easy Deployment)

Why Railway:

• $5/month free credit (sufficient for small projects)
• Native PostgreSQL support
• Supports custom TCP ports (critical for SMTP on port 2525)
• Auto-deploys from GitHub
• Easy environment variable management
• Custom domains included

Deployment Steps:

1. Create a Railway account at railway.app
2. Create a new project
3. Add PostgreSQL database from template
4. Deploy API service from apps/api Dockerfile
5. Deploy Web service from apps/web Dockerfile
6. Configure environment variables:
   • DATABASE_URL (from Railway PostgreSQL)
   • SMTP_PORT=2525
   • SMTP_DOMAIN=your-domain.com
   • CORS_ORIGINS=https://your-web-app.railway.app
7. Expose TCP port 2525 for SMTP server
8. Set up custom domain (optional)

Cost: Free tier with $5/month credit, then pay-as-you-go

Option 2: Oracle Cloud Free Tier (Best for Self-Hosting)

Why Oracle Cloud:

• Forever free tier with generous resources (4 ARM CPUs, 24GB RAM)
• Full control over VM and ports
• Can run the exact docker-compose.yml setup
• No spending limits or surprises
• Great for self-hosting and learning

Deployment Steps:

1. Create Oracle Cloud account (free tier)
2. Launch Ubuntu VM instance (ARM or x86)
3. SSH into the instance
4. Install Docker and Docker Compose:

   # Install Docker
   curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
   sudo sh get-docker.sh
   
   # Install Docker Compose
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin

5. Clone your repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/my-dev-deck.git
   cd my-dev-deck

6. Configure environment variables:

   cp apps/api/.env.example apps/api/.env
   cp apps/web/.env.example apps/web/.env
   # Edit .env files with your settings

7. Run with Docker Compose:

   docker-compose up -d

8. Configure firewall rules:
   • Open ports 4000 (API), 4001 (Web), 2525 (SMTP)
   • Set up nginx as reverse proxy (recommended)
9. (Optional) Set up SSL with Let's Encrypt

Cost: Free forever

Option 3: Fly.io (Docker-Native Platform)

Why Fly.io:

• Free tier: 3 shared VMs, 3GB persistent storage
• Supports custom TCP ports (SMTP compatible)
• Docker-native platform
• Global edge network
• Simple fly.toml configuration

Deployment Steps:

1. Install flyctl CLI: curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh
2. Login: flyctl auth login
3. Launch services:

   # Deploy API
   cd apps/api
   flyctl launch --dockerfile Dockerfile
   
   # Deploy Web
   cd apps/web
   flyctl launch --dockerfile Dockerfile

4. Add PostgreSQL: flyctl postgres create
5. Configure environment variables with flyctl secrets set
6. Expose TCP port 2525 for SMTP in fly.toml

Cost: Free tier, then pay-as-you-go

Environment Variables

Each deployment requires configuration. See example files:

• apps/api/.env.example - Database, SMTP, API config
• apps/web/.env.example - API URL and frontend config

Key Variables:

• DATABASE_URL - PostgreSQL connection string
• PORT - API HTTP port (default: 4000)
• SMTP_PORT - SMTP server port (default: 2525)
• SMTP_DOMAIN - Domain for email routing (e.g., devinbox.local)
• CORS_ORIGINS - Allowed origins for CORS
• NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL - API endpoint for web app

Production Checklist

Before deploying to production:

• Set strong database password
• Configure CORS origins for your domain
• Set up SSL/TLS certificates (Let's Encrypt)
• Configure firewall rules
• Set up monitoring and logging
• Configure backup strategy for PostgreSQL
• Update SMTP_DOMAIN to your actual domain
• (Optional) Set up authentication for multi-user support

📖 Documentation

• CLAUDE.md - Repository guidance for Claude Code
• CONTRIBUTING.md - Contribution guidelines
• DevInbox Implementation Plan - Detailed plan for the first tool

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project is built in public to showcase development capabilities and to help the developer community.

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on the development process and how to submit pull requests.

📝 Development Philosophy

• Build in Public: All development happens in the open
• Developer First: Tools built by developers, for developers
• Self-Hosted: Full control over your data and infrastructure
• Modern Stack: Using cutting-edge technologies and best practices
• Type Safe: TypeScript everywhere for better DX

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with Turborepo
• UI powered by Tailwind CSS
• Backend with NestJS
• Frontend with Next.js

📬 Contact

Parrow Horrizon Studio

• GitHub: @yourusername (Update this!)
• Project Link: https://github.com/yourusername/my-dev-deck (Update this!)

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Note: This project is under active development. The first tool (DevInbox) is production-ready and fully functional! Star and watch this repository to follow the progress as we add more developer tools.