Move data from separate branch into server folder on main branch

[leandrumartin]

🎯 Goal / Objective

A clear and concise description of what this task aims to achieve. Why is this task important?

The current architecture for this project, first implemented months ago and currently documented in the older diagrams in the Docs/ folder, involves the "database" being a separate branch in this repository, called data. The server in the main branch fetches the data directly from GitHub.

We are moving away from this, and instead we want the data to live right on the backend server.

---

✅ Tasks to be Completed

A checklist of the specific, actionable steps required to complete this issue. This helps track progress.

• Copy all data in the data branch and place it in boneset-api/ folder in the main branch, which is where our server lives
• Refactor the server (boneset-api/server.js) to fetch all its data from this new local folder instead of GitHub.
• Test that it works. We currently do not have automated tests set up, and this issue does not involve the front-end being refactored to route all data fetching through the server (that is being done in Refactor GitHub data fetching to use internal API with api.js functions #218). So, the only way to test this is by manually sending HTTP requests to the server and manually checking that it returns the expected data; this can be done using Postman.

---

Acceptance Criteria

A checklist of conditions that must be met for this task to be considered complete. How will we verify that it's done correctly?

• The new feature is implemented as described.
• All related code passes the repository's workflow checks (linting, tests).
• The application runs without errors after the changes are made.
• Any related documentation has been updated, including JSDoc comments or docstrings

---

Additional Context

Add any other context, notes, screenshots, or links that might be helpful for completing this task.

The reasons we are moving the data are:

• More secure: Attacks on GitHub will not impact our live app
• Faster and more reliable: Failure to fetch data from GitHub for any reason will not impact our live app. Continually fetching data from GitHub would also have resulted in rate limiting and would have been slower than storing the data locally; a plan was therefore in place to cache the data on the server once initially fetched. But storing the data on the server in the first place is simpler and less prone to errors.
• Faster to develop: If someone is developing a feature and notices that a change in the data is necessary for it to appear correctly, they would currently have to submit the change as a pull request into the data branch and wait for the entire process of reviewing and merging before they can even see the change reflected in their local development environment. But after we move the data, they will be able to update the data locally and see the change reflected immediately in their local test server.

Download Postman at postman.com.