Vegan Grove documentation
Status: Scaffolded 2026-09-24
Vegan Grove is a privacy-first vegan community and activism platform for Southern California. Every member is an activist. The app helps them find sanctuaries, vegan businesses, and events, meet each other safely, and get out the door and act.
This site is public on purpose. The code, the data inventory, the threat model, and the roadmap are all here so anyone can check how member data is handled. What is never here: who the members are, or anything that identifies the machines the platform runs on. See the disclosure policy.
Platform
| Component | Technology | Repo | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backend API | Node 24, Express 5, TypeScript, Mongoose 9, Socket.IO | vegan-grove-api | Scaffolded |
| Web app | Next 15 (App Router), Tailwind 4, MapLibre | vegan-grove-web | Scaffolded |
| Mobile app | Expo SDK 57, expo-router, MapLibre | vegan-grove-mobile | Scaffolded |
| Docs | PokeDocs (Docusaurus) | vegan-grove-docs | This site |
| Database | MongoDB Atlas | Not provisioned | |
| Hosting | AWS us-east-1: EC2 + PM2, Amplify, S3, SES | Provisioned: domains live, API host waiting on the database |
Start here
- Product: Vision, the principles, and the concept map that explains how The Trick Book's ideas became Vegan Grove's.
- Privacy: the promise, the data inventory, and the threat model.
- Architecture: the overview, the repo dependency map, and the ADRs.
- Features: overview, then Places, Events, Groves, Friends, Feed, Messages, Media, Guides, Ivy, Notifications.
- Engineering and deployment: engineering standards and the deployment overview.
Repositories
~/Documents/VeganGrove/repos
├── api/ vegan-grove-api shared REST API + Socket.IO
├── web/ vegan-grove-web Next.js site on Amplify
├── mobile/ vegan-grove-mobile Expo React Native app
└── docs/ vegan-grove-docs this site
Each repo carries the same governance files: SOUL.md, PRODUCT-PRINCIPLES-CHECKLIST.md, AGENTS.md, a PR template, CODEOWNERS, SECURITY.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and a proprietary LICENSE. The code is public; redistribution is not permitted.
Lineage
Vegan Grove mirrors the shape of The Trick Book, the same author's skate and snow app: four repos, one shared API, MongoDB, Amplify for the web, EAS for mobile, PokeDocs for docs. What changed is the data policy. The concept map lists every carried-over idea and its privacy rule.