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Revise requirements, trace designs, explain your work

For software capstone projects, course projects and UML assignments, the workspace helps students check whether requirements are reflected in designs and tests, identify materials affected by changes and explain where their design decisions came from.

Source links and coverage counts help locate content to inspect. Open the models to check their actual constraints and behavior. Run generated test cases against the real system; consistency between diagrams, specifications and code requires human review and execution evidence.

Project materials you can prepare

• Analysis and design: requirement rules, feasibility analysis, UML models and system designs.
• Testing and presentation: test cases, coverage matrices, traceability matrices and task records for checking your work.
• Engineering documents: feasibility reports, requirements specifications and software design descriptions, with version management and DOCX downloads; online editing requires OnlyOffice.
• Implementation inputs: saved designs and acceptance criteria for a compatible Coding Agent to use when implementing and testing in an external repository.

Review generated content, organize documents according to your school's requirements and verify the running system. Engineering specifications can support a project report; they are not a complete graduation thesis. Real-client compatibility and generated-code acceptance for Coding Agents remain pending; see the integration guide.

Overview

SoftJL Community is a self-hosted AI software engineering workspace, distributed as an independent source snapshot with a fresh Git history.

Core Capabilities

Community and Hosted Comparison

Community is the self-hosted edition in this repository. Hosted is the service available on the SoftJL website. ✅ means supported; — means not provided. Configuration and access requirements are listed below.

Edition boundaries

After the initial installation and build, use npm run dev:mcp for local MCP access. See MCP configuration for production setup.

Platform billing, payments, credit management, and the operations administration backend are excluded. Read-only MCP access is optional, with explicit project grants and the shared connection page. Authentication, project permissions, provider credential protection and generation scheduling remain available. Hosted availability depends on the current deployment, account permissions and service configuration.

Use an independent database. This distribution is not a downgrade path for an existing full-edition database. Generated models and documents require review, and tests must be executed against your actual system.

Interface Preview

The original visual style and historical screenshots are retained. See the capability table for the current community scope.

Homepage

Project dashboard

Quick Start

Install Node.js 22, npm 10, Java 21 and Graphviz. Docker is optional for the core in-memory experience, and is used by the PostgreSQL and OnlyOffice helpers. The first renderer setup may download PDF CJK fonts.

1. Install and start core services

git clone https://github.com/guolola/SoftJL.git
cd SoftJL
npm ci
npm run dev

The root development command builds contracts and prompts automatically, then starts Web, API and rendering. Run npm run build:packages before starting individual applications or running tests.

Without DATABASE_URL, accounts, projects, provider configurations and run history are temporary and disappear when the server restarts. Document files use separate local storage and do not replace a database backup.

Web normally runs on port 3000, API on 4101 and rendering on 4002. Wait for Web to report Ready; http://localhost:3000/api/health and http://127.0.0.1:4002/health should return status: "ok".

2. Enable persistence and optional editing

With Docker running, use npm run dev:postgres for a dedicated development PostgreSQL database stored in a Docker volume. The helper's credentials are for local development only. Use a separate database for Community.

For an existing PostgreSQL server, copy .env.example to .env, configure DATABASE_URL and a generated UML_PROVIDER_CONFIG_SECRET, then run npm run dev. The root command loads this file. Keep the encryption secret stable and private; changing it prevents decryption of saved provider credentials.

Core services support document generation and downloads. For online editing, start Docker and run npm run dev:full; the helper checks OnlyOffice on port 8080 and creates or starts its container when needed. The initial image download requires network access. See production configuration for external services and deployment settings.

3. Configure a model provider

Add your provider in account model settings, test the connection and select a model. Configure persistence and encryption secrets for deployment, and disable development guest access and legacy plaintext provider settings.

Architecture

Common Commands

The root npm run dev builds shared packages automatically; use npm run build:packages before individual application commands and tests. Other npm scripts include build, test:contracts, test:api, test:web, test:render, typecheck:web and audit:docs. CI is included; the original production deployment workflow is excluded.

Online Access

SoftJL website offers the hosted edition, which may have different features. Run this repository locally for the community edition.

Documentation

• Contributing
• Security reporting
• Community maintenance and verification
• Documentation index
• Online user guide

License

Copyright © 2026 Software Engineering Practice Platform. Project code and documentation retain the Apache-2.0 license. Third-party templates, dependencies, fonts, icons and the PlantUML runtime retain their respective licenses; see NOTICE.