Coding Academy Backend Starter

A Node.js backend service supporting the Coding Academy E2E starter project. This service provides RESTful APIs, real-time WebSocket functionality, and MongoDB integration.

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Start the server:

npm run dev     # Development mode with hot reload
npm start       # Production mode

📡 API Endpoints

Cars API

• GET /api/car - Get all cars with optional filtering
• GET /api/car/:id - Get car by ID
• POST /api/car - Create new car
• PUT /api/car/:id - Update car
• DELETE /api/car/:id - Delete car
• POST /api/car/:id/msg - Add message to car

Users API

• POST /api/auth/signup - Register new user
• POST /api/auth/login - Login user
• POST /api/auth/logout - Logout user
• GET /api/user - Get all users
• GET /api/user/:id - Get user by ID

Reviews API

• GET /api/review - Get all reviews
• POST /api/review - Create new review
• DELETE /api/review/:id - Delete review

🏗️ Project Structure

api/
├── auth/         # Authentication routes and logic
├── user/         # User management
├── car/          # Car CRUD operations
└── review/       # Review system
services/
├── db.service.js       # Database connectivity
├── socket.service.js   # WebSocket functionality
├── logger.service.js   # Logging utility
└── util.service.js     # Helper functions
middlewares/
├── requireAuth.js      # Authentication middleware
└── setupAls.js        # Async local storage setup

💾 Database Schema

Car Collection

{
  vendor: String,
  speed: Number,
  owner: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'User' },
  msgs: [{
    id: String,
    txt: String,
    by: { _id, fullname }
  }]
}

User Collection

{
  username: String,
  password: String,
  fullname: String,
  score: Number,
  isAdmin: Boolean
}

Review Collection

{
  txt: String,
  byUserId: ObjectId,
  aboutUserId: ObjectId
}

🔒 Authentication

Uses JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for stateless authentication. Tokens are stored in cookies and validated through middleware.

🔌 WebSocket Events

• user-watch - User status updates
• chat-new-msg - New chat messages
• review-about-you - New review notifications
• review-added - Review created
• review-removed - Review deleted

🛠️ Development

Error Handling

try {
  // Your code
} catch (err) {
  logger.error('Failed to do something', err)
  throw err
}

Async Local Storage

Used for tracking request context, especially for logging and user sessions.

📝 Logging

Logs are stored in the /logs directory with the following levels:

• DEBUG - Development information
• INFO - General application events
• WARN - Warning conditions
• ERROR - Error events

🔥 Production Deployment

1. Set production environment variables
2. Build the frontend:

cd ../frontend-react && npm run build

3. Start the server:

npm start

📄 License

Coding Academy - Built with ❤️ for teaching modern fullstack development