Update README

.gitignore

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 /playwright-report/
 /blob-report/
 /playwright/.cache/
+ .vscode 

README.md

@@ -2,10 +2,49 @@
 
 Front end for Application Engineering's capital projects map.
 
-## Dev setup
-- `nvm use`
-- `npm i`
-- `npm run dev`
+# Running the project locally
+
+### Dev setup:
+
+### Ensure you're using the correct version of Node
+The `.nvmrc` file tells you which version of node you should be using to run the project. If you're using [nvm](https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm) and already have the correct version installed, you can switch by running  
+ ```
+ nvm use
+```
+from the root of this repo.
+
+### Install dependencies
+Once you have cloned this repo, install the necessary dependencies:
+```
+npm i
+```
+
+### Set up your `.env` file to point to a running instance of the [Zoning API](https://github.com/NYCPlanning/ae-zoning-api)
+This project relies on data from a companion API known as the "Zoning API". You will need to set up a `.env` file pointing to a URL where an instance of the Zoning API is hosted. The easiest way to do this is to clone that repo and run it locally. To do that, follow these steps:
+
+1. Go to the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/NYCPlanning/ae-zoning-api) for Zoning API
+2. Follow the steps there to clone the project, run the API, and run its database using docker compose
+3. Leave that Zoning API and its database running in a separate terminal, and navigate back to where you cloned this repo.
+4. Back in your cloned copy of this repo, create a file called `.env` in the root folder of the project and copy the contents of `sample.env` into that new file. The default value in `sample.env` should set the Zoning API URL variable to the correct value for your locally running instance of Zoning API
+
+### Run the project
+Finally, to run this project locally:
+```
+npm run dev
+```
+
+## Pulling data from [Zoning API](https://github.com/NYCPlanning/ae-zoning-api)
+This app relies heavily on data from the Zoning API backend application. It makes use of some front end libraries to make pulling data and managing the state of that data easier:
+
+* [Axios](https://axios-http.com/docs/intro) - A framework-agnostic HTTP client for javascript and typescript applications
+* [Kubb](https://www.kubb.dev/introduction) - A code generation library that reads [OpenAPI specification](https://www.openapis.org/) documents and generates typescript "client" libraries (sometimes also referred to as "SDKs"). It features a set of plugins to generate code for various JS/TS libraries, including Axios. By pointing Kubb at the [OpenAPI document for Zoning API](https://github.com/NYCPlanning/ae-zoning-api/blob/main/openapi/openapi.yaml), we can avoid writing a lot of boilerplate code.
+
+### Regenerating the Zoning API client code
+When the OpenAPI spec file for Zoning API changes, we will need to regenerate the client code in this repo. To do that, simply run `npm run kubb:generate`. Kubb is configured to put all generated code in `/app/gen`. Note that even though that code is generated, we do want to commit it and includes updates in PRs as necessary. A developer should **never** make manually changes or additions to code in the `/app/gen` folder. It should be purely what is outputted by Kubb.
+
+
+Unless you think the contents of the Zoning API OpenAPI spec file have changed since the last time the client code was generated, you can safely skip this step.
+
 
 ## E2E Testing
 This application is currently configured to use Playwright for end to end testing.