This is a work-in-progress to build version 2 of VaHI

Check out the v2 roadmap to see what I'm working on. I am open to ideas/suggestions for what you would like to see in our mext major release.

VaHI - A standardized grading system for limbal stem cell deficiency

VaHI is a standardized grading system for limbal stem cell deficiency.

Limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) results from a range of pathologies such as chemical burns and aniridia. While the repertoire of treatment techniques expands and the number of limbal cell therapies grows, there is still a lack of objective outcome measures in grading this pathology. The different assessment techniques and subjective parameters challenge the grading of LSCD severity and impede objective comparison of treatment outcomes.

VaHI stands for Vascularisation, Haze and Integrity; 3 key clinical signs of LSCD. Grading different clinical signs related to LSCD allows a simple way of documenting the severity of the condition and in evaluating outcomes after treatment.

The VaHI software provides a new, improved and easy grading system for assessing and grading LSCD eyes. Feel welcome to discover this tool and join us for some simple and straightforward grading.

For more information on what VaHI does/is, please visit vahi.eu.

Table of contents

• Getting started
• Technology stack
• Configuration
• Deployment
  • With NodeJS
  • With PM2
  • With Docker
• Where to get help
• Contribute
• License

Getting started

Running the VaHI Docker image

The fastest way to try VaHI is to spin it up as a Docker container.

Running VaHI from source code

To run VaHI from source code, you will need NodeJS on your system.

I recommend using nvm for installing NodeJS).

Then you can clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone git@github.com:vahicode/vahi.git
cd vahi
npm install

Now you can start VaHi in development mode by running:

npm run dev

Now open your browser at http://localhost:3000/start

Technology stack

VaHI 2 is a NextJS app using a SQLite database through prisma.

The VaHI container is built on top of Debian Buster and uses the PM2 process manager.

Configuration

VaHI requires two things to function:

• A VAHI_SECRET environment variable
• A database

Setting VAHI_SECRET environment variable

You should set the VAHI_SECRET environment variable to some random string. It will be used to sign the JSON Web Tokens (JWT) so if you don't set it things will still work, but it will undermine the security of the VaHI authentication.

Passing an environment variable to NodeJS can be done in a variety of ways.
For convenience, I've included an example.env.local file that you can copy to .env.local and edit. All variables you set in this file will automatically be picked up.

If you're running VaHI with Docker, please refer to DOCKER.md for details on how to set environment variables

Creating the database

VaHI uses sqlite3 for its database, so a database file needs to be created.

If you're happy to start with a new (empty) database, you can create it with this command:

npm run initdb

If you have an existing database you'd like to use, copy the file to db/vahi.db (assuming you did not change the location of the database in the configuration file --- see below).

If you're running VaHI with Docker, please refer to DOCKER.md for details on how to create/manage the VaHI database.

Deployment

Pure NodeJS

You can deploy Vahi by building the project, and then running it:

npm run build
npm run start

This will spin up the NextJS instance, listening on port 3000.

You will probably want to put this behind a reverse proxy (like Nginx) to terminate the SSL connection and forward to port 3000.

With PM2

You can improve on running the bare NodeJS version by running it inside PM2 which is a process manager for NodeJS.

To do so, install PM2 globally:

npm install pm2 -g

Then rather than npm run start run:

pm2 start "npm run start" --name vahi

Refer to the PM2 documentation for more details.

With Docker

We publish a VaHI container on the Docker registry. To run it, expose port 3000 and set the VAHI_SECRET environment variable.

You may also want to volume-mount the /vahi/db folder to keep your database out of the docker image.

All of that in one command:

docker run \
  -e VAHI_SECRET=insertRandomStringHere \
  -p 3000:3000 vahicode/vahi \
  -v /your/local/folder:/vahi/db \
  vahicode/vahi

If you're running VaHI with Docker, please refer to DOCKER.md for details on all aspects of running VaHI in Docker.

Where to get help

VaHI is open source so if you run into any issues, feel free to dive in and peek under the hood.

If you get stuck, you can create an issue.

Contribute

If you'd like to see something added, feel free to submit a pull request and I'll try to have a look at it.

License: MIT

© Joost De Cock.

VaHI is licensed under the MIT license See the license file for details.