MFI (Millers for Nutrition)

A Firebase-powered web application built to support millers' self-assessment and nutrition tracking across organizations.

📚 Documentation

All technical documentation for the MFI platform is maintained in the /docs directory.

➡️ Start here: Documentation Index

This includes:

• Tech Training Manual
• Handover Technical Documentation
• Deployment Runbook
• Architecture diagrams and references

📦 Project Structure

├── frontend         # React-based frontend interface
├── functions        # Firebase Cloud Functions (Node.js backend)
├── .husky           # Git hooks (pre-commit linting)
├── package.json     # Project metadata and scripts

🚀 Features

• 🔐 Firebase Authentication
• ☁️ Firebase Functions for backend logic
• 🌐 React-based frontend
• ✅ Linting and formatting with ESLint + Prettier
• 🧪 Git hooks using Husky and Pretty-Quick
• 📤 One-step deployment to Firebase
• 🔐 Secure secrets management using Firebase Secrets
• 🗄️ Firestore (Native mode) for structured assessment data

🛠️ Scripts

Script	Description
npm run serve	Serve Firebase locally in production mode
npm run deploy	Deploy app to Firebase
npm run lint	Run lint checks for frontend and functions
npm run format	Auto-format code with Prettier
npm run husky:install	Set up Git hooks
npm run pull:deploy	Pull from develop and deploy

📦 Installation

git clone https://github.com/TechnoServe/MFI-Web.git
cd MFI-main
npm install

Note: This project requires Node.js v20.18.2. If you're using NVM:

nvm install 20.18.2
nvm use 20.18.2

Firebase CLI Requirement: This project requires Firebase CLI v15.4.0.

Install Firebase CLI

Using npm (recommended):

npm install -g [email protected]

Verify installation:

firebase --version

The output should be:

15.4.0

⚠️ Using a different Firebase CLI version may result in deployment or emulator incompatibilities.

Install frontend and functions dependencies:

cd frontend && npm install
cd ../functions && npm install

🔧 Firebase Setup

Make sure you’ve initialized Firebase with the correct project settings:

firebase login
firebase use --add

🔐 Secrets Configuration (Required)

This project currently uses a .env file located in the functions/ directory to manage sensitive configuration values during deployment.

⚠️ Important: This is an intentional, transitional setup. While Firebase Secrets are supported and recommended long-term, the current MFI deployment relies on .env values being loaded at deploy/build time.

The following environment variables must be present in functions/.env before deploying Cloud Functions:

AUTH_FILE=path_to_service_account_json
PROJECT_ID=ignite-program
NODE_ENV=production
FRONTEND_URL=https://selfassessment.mfi-ng.org
TRANSACTIONAL_EMAIL_ADDRESS=[email protected]
SMTP_USERNAME=your_smtp_username
SMTP_PASSWORD=your_smtp_password
SMTP_ENDPOINT=your_smtp_host
REPLY_TO_EMAIL=[email protected]

Variable notes:

• AUTH_FILE — Path to the Google service account JSON used for admin access
• PROJECT_ID — Google Cloud / Firebase project ID
• NODE_ENV — Deployment environment (production or development)
• FRONTEND_URL — Allowed frontend origin for CORS
• TRANSACTIONAL_EMAIL_ADDRESS — Sender address for system emails
• SMTP_USERNAME / SMTP_PASSWORD — SMTP credentials for email delivery
• SMTP_ENDPOINT — SMTP server hostname
• REPLY_TO_EMAIL — Reply-to address for outgoing emails

During deployment, these values are loaded into the Cloud Functions environment. Any deployment environment (local machine or CI/CD) must provide an identical .env file to ensure consistency.

🔐 Security Note: The .env file must never be committed to source control and should be securely shared with authorized personnel only.

To serve locally:

npm run serve

✅ Pre-commit Hooks

Linting runs automatically before every commit using Husky:

npm run lint

🏗️ Architecture Overview

Figure: High-level architecture of the MFI Self-Assessment platform showing Firebase Hosting, Cloud Functions (Gen 1), Firestore (Native), Authentication, Storage, and Secrets integration.

MFI is built on Firebase and Google Cloud Platform using the following components:

• Frontend: React (Firebase Hosting)
• Backend: Firebase Cloud Functions (Node.js, Gen 1)
• Authentication: Firebase Authentication
• Authorization: Application-level logic using Firestore data (no custom claims)
• Database: Firestore (Native mode)
• Storage: Firebase Storage
• Configuration: .env-based environment variables loaded at deploy time

The system is designed for scalability, security, and maintainability, and supports future multi-country extensions.

🔄 Platform Evolution (Old vs Current Setup)

This section highlights the key runtime changes made to the MFI platform over time for clarity during handover and maintenance.

Old Setup

• Cloud Functions Runtime: Node.js 18 (nodejs18)
• Local Development Environment: Node.js 18
• Deployment Target: Firebase Cloud Functions (Gen 1)

Current Setup

• Cloud Functions Runtime: Node.js 20 (nodejs20)
• Local Development Environment: Node.js 20.18.2
• Deployment Target: Firebase Cloud Functions (Gen 1)

ℹ️ Note: While the Cloud Functions runtime has been upgraded to Node.js 20, the platform remains on 1st Gen Cloud Functions. No 2nd Gen migration has been performed.

🌐 Live URL

https://selfassessment.mfi-ng.org

Production (Nigeria – MFI): https://selfassessment.mfi-ng.org

🖼️ Architecture Diagram

The architecture diagram is located at:

docs/architecture/mfi-architecture.png

This diagram should be updated whenever there are significant changes to the hosting, backend services, authentication flow, or database structure.

📄 License

ISC License. See LICENSE for details.

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss what you’d like to change.

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🐛 Bugs & Issues

Report issues here:
👉 https://github.com/TechnoServe/MFI-Web/issues