Onboarding (Weeks 1–2)

Welcome to CS408. This is not a traditional course — you are a new hire at TechHire, a fictional web development company. Your team of 35 engineers will spend the semester building a real job board application on a shared GitHub repository. Your grade comes entirely from the work you ship via pull requests.

Your first tasks

1. Set up your development environment

# Clone the class repo (link posted in Canvas)
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_ORG/cs408-fall26
cd cs408-fall26

# Install uv (Python package manager)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Install all dependencies
uv sync --all-groups

# Start the dev server
uv run uvicorn app.main:app --reload
# Open http://localhost:8000

Make sure you can see the job board home page before moving on.

2. Run the test suite

uv run pytest --tb=short -q

All tests should pass on a fresh clone. If they don't, post in the #help channel with the error output.

3. Understand the codebase

Spend time reading through these files before writing a single line of code:

File	What it does
app/main.py	FastAPI app entry point
app/models/job.py	Job database model
app/models/application.py	Application model and status enum
app/routes/jobs.py	CRUD routes for jobs
app/routes/applications.py	Routes for submitting and managing applications
templates/base.html	Shared HTML layout
CONTRIBUTING.md	Read this carefully — it explains the PR workflow and grading

4. Learn your role

Your role is assigned in Canvas. Each role has specific responsibilities:

Role	Focus
Frontend	Jinja2 templates, CSS, HTMX interactions
Backend	FastAPI routes, SQLModel models, business logic
QA	pytest tests, reviewing PRs for test coverage
DevOps	GitHub Actions, deployment, environment configuration
Tech Lead	Architecture decisions, code reviews, unblocking teammates
PM	Issue triage, sprint tracking, retrospective notes

5. Make your first PR

Your first deliverable is a pull request that adds your name to CONTRIBUTORS.md:

| @your-github-username | Your Role | A fun fact about yourself |

Follow the branch naming convention from CONTRIBUTING.md:

git checkout -b feat/issue-1-add-yourname-to-contributors
# edit CONTRIBUTORS.md
git add CONTRIBUTORS.md
git commit -m "Add @yourname to CONTRIBUTORS.md"
git push origin feat/issue-1-add-yourname-to-contributors
# Open a pull request on GitHub

Your PR must:

• Pass all CI checks (ruff, pyright, pytest)
• Be linked to the onboarding issue in the PR description (Closes #N)
• Receive 2 peer approvals before it can merge

How grading works

Every merged PR earns credit. Reviews you give to others also count. At the end of the semester your instructor runs a script that queries GitHub and produces a grade based on:

Grade	Merged PRs	Reviews Given
A	≥ 12	≥ 10
B	≥ 8	≥ 6
C	≥ 5	≥ 0

Reviewing other people's PRs is part of your grade — do not ignore review requests.

Week 2 checklist

• [ ] Dev environment is running (uv run uvicorn app.main:app --reload)
• [ ] All tests pass locally (uv run pytest)
• [ ] You have read CONTRIBUTING.md end to end
• [ ] Your onboarding PR is merged into main
• [ ] You have approved at least 2 of your classmates' onboarding PRs