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Local Development Data

The backend/data directory contains seed data files used by the backend when running in local development (NODE_ENV=development).

By default, the backend reads from and writes to this directory instead of connecting to AWS S3. This keeps all local work fully isolated from the deployed Dev environment on AWS.

To connect to real S3 while running locally (e.g. to test against live data without deploying), set USE_LOCAL_S3=false in your .env file. AWS credentials must be configured for this to work. See .env.example for details.

Structure

backend/data/
├── main/                                # Mirrors the Digital Landscape S3 bucket
│   ├── directorates.json
│   ├── bannerMessages.json
│   ├── techRadarEntries.json
│   ├── repositoryStatistics.json
│   └── AddressBook/
│       ├── addressBookEmailKey.json
│       ├── addressBookIDKey.json
│       └── addressBookUsernameKey.json
├── tat/                                 # Mirrors the TAT API S3 bucket
│   ├── array_data.json
│   └── new_project_data.json
└── copilot/                             # Mirrors the Copilot Usage Dashboard S3 bucket
    ├── admin_teams.json
    ├── organisation_history.json
    └── archive/
        ├── pre-feb25/
        │   └── historic_usage_data_feb25.json
        └── pre-mar26/
            ├── copilot_teams.json
            ├── historic_usage_data_mar26.json
            └── teams_history.json

Populating with real data

If you need realistic data locally, you can download files from the Dev S3 buckets and place them into backend/data.

  1. Log in with AWS SSO:
aws sso login
  1. Copy the files into the correct folders:
aws s3 cp s3://<S3 Object Path> backend/data/<path>

Full commands on doing this are available within KEH's Confluence. There is a Digital Landscape Local Data playbook that contains commands to copy and paste into your terminal to download the data. (Internal only)

Notes

  • Keep downloaded data local and avoid committing real environment data.