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A full-stack RealWorld/Conduit-style blogging platform.

Stack

• Frontend: React 19, TypeScript, Vite, React Router 7, Zustand
• Backend: Express, TypeScript, Prisma, SQLite, JWT, Zod, Multer

Project structure

• frontend/: web app
• backend/: API server and Prisma schema
• backend/prisma/: SQLite schema, migrations, local database files

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• npm

Environment

Create local environment files from the examples:

copy backend\.env.example backend\.env
copy frontend\.env.example frontend\.env

Required backend variables:

• JWT_SECRET: required, no fallback is used
• DATABASE_URL: SQLite connection string, e.g. file:./dev.db
• PORT: optional, defaults to 3000, must be an integer between 1 and 65535
• NODE_ENV: optional, defaults to development, must be one of development, test, or production
• LOG_LEVEL: optional, one of debug, info, warn, error
• RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_MS: optional, request limit window in milliseconds
• RATE_LIMIT_MAX_REQUESTS: optional, max requests per window for protected endpoints
• CORS_ORIGIN: optional, * or a comma-separated list of allowed frontend origins
• TRUST_PROXY: optional, set to 1 or true when running behind Render, Railway, Caddy, or another reverse proxy
• PUBLIC_APP_URL: optional, forces uploaded asset URLs to use a specific public backend origin
• UPLOADS_DIR: optional, defaults to backend/public/uploads for local development

Frontend variables:

• VITE_API_BASE_URL: API base URL, usually http://localhost:3000/api

Install

Dependencies are already present in this workspace, but on a clean checkout run:

npm install
cd backend && npm install
cd ..\frontend && npm install

Run locally

Start the backend:

npm run dev:backend

Start the frontend in a second terminal:

npm run dev:frontend

Operations

• GET /healthz: process health
• GET /readyz: database readiness check
• Request logging is structured JSON and includes requestId
• Auth and upload endpoints have lightweight in-memory rate limiting

CI and containers

• GitHub Actions CI is defined in .github/workflows/ci.yml
• Dockerfiles are provided for backend/Dockerfile and frontend/Dockerfile
• A local container deployment is provided in docker-compose.yml
• A Render blueprint for the backend is provided in render.yaml
• A Vercel + Render deployment guide is provided in DEPLOY_VERCEL_RENDER.md

Test

Run backend integration tests:

npm test

The test suite uses a separate SQLite file under backend/test/test.db and resets data between tests.

Backend API coverage

The current test suite covers the main user flows:

• register and login
• current user fetch and update
• article create, update, list, favorite, unfavorite, delete
• comment create, list, delete
• follow, unfollow, personalized feed

Notes

• Uploaded avatars are served from backend/public/uploads/ by default and can be moved with UPLOADS_DIR
• SQLite runtime files and uploads are ignored via .gitignore
• The frontend fallback to the public RealWorld API should not be relied on for local development