braid uses mocha (test framework), chai (BDD/TDD assertion library), sinnon (spies, stubs, and mocks), nyc (code coverage calculator) for our unit testing. Get aquainted with these packages to have a smooth unit testing experience.
for schema management/validation, braid uses joi.
For web sockets braid uses ws
braid uses typescript for our primary code development because of it's opinionated type management among other things. Get a good understanding of what typescript is, it's benifits, drawbacks, and dev flow

Setting up

install npm
install typescript globally (npm i -g typescript). This is important because it is needed to transpile, so you can run your changes locally (using command tsc)
run npm install
download the braid repo into a folder in the same directory as the primary yardstick folder

Building to Docker Hub (this has been retired, new methodolgy will be outlined soon)

run ./build
when complete you'll see something like this Your new docker tag: yardstick/braid:tagid
copy this tag id, and in the yardstick docker-compose.yml file change the image field to have the new tag, for example:

braid:
  image: yardstick/braid:{add the new tag here}
  environment:
    VIRTUAL_HOST: ysbraid.localhost
    HTTPS_METHOD: noredirect

once complete and confirmed to function, create a new PR for the measure repo, with the new tag and await ultimate judgement

vagrant up in the primary yardstick folder
run the command compose stop braid && compose rm braid && tsc && compose build braid && compose up -d in the braid folder
- compose stop stops the default braid container that vagrant up builds
- compose rm braid removes the default braid container
- tsc transpiles the typescript in braid into javascript
- compose build braid builds the braid image based on the latest transpiled javascript files
- comopose up -d starts the braid container based on the files in the braid folder, overriding the default braid build container
you can see if braid is running by typing in https://ysbraid.localhost
to connect to braid you need to use the url ws://ysbraid.localhost
to test your changes before pushing you can run tsc && npm test
to check code coverage run nyc npm test, we must maintain above 90% code coverage