Make local frontend backend configurable

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

README.md

@@ -1,20 +1,35 @@
 # Getting started
 
-Before starting, make sure you have a working python and nodejs setup with pyenv and nvm.
+Before starting, make sure you have Python 3.9 and Node.js 20 available.
 
 ```bash
-apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev
-pre-commit install
 uv run manage.py migrate
-uv run bin/run
 cp .env-default .env
+uv run manage.py seed_demo_data
 
-# in another terminal
-cd frontend
-npm install
-npm start
+# Optional: create an admin login
+uv run manage.py createsuperuser
+
+# Install frontend packages once
+cd frontend && npm install
 ```
 
+Start the backend and frontend in separate terminals from the project root:
+
+```bash
+uv run bin/run
+```
+
+```bash
+uv run bin/run-frontend
+```
+
+Vite prints the frontend URL when it starts (normally <http://localhost:5173/>; if that port is busy, it selects another). Django runs at <http://localhost:3000/>; open the admin directly at <http://localhost:3000/admin/> or through the frontend dev proxy at the printed Vite URL followed by `/admin/`. The GraphQL API is at <http://localhost:3000/graphql/>; the frontend uses Vite's proxy for development API requests.
+
+To test the frontend against a different backend, set `VITE_DEV_API_PROXY` when starting Vite, for example `VITE_DEV_API_PROXY=https://bbs.neuf.no uv run bin/run-frontend`. This affects the development proxy only; use caution with a live backend, since app changes and submissions may modify production data.
+
+To create the admin during data seeding instead, set `BBS_SEED_ADMIN_PASSWORD` for that command; the command only creates a local `admin` superuser if one does not already exist.
+
 ## References
 
 - We use JS code generation to work with queries/mutations in our graphql API: <https://github.com/dotansimha/graphql-typed-document-node>