Task Manager API

A production-style RESTful API for managing tasks, built with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB. Includes JWT authentication, ownership-based authorization, input validation, rate limiting, and automated testing.

Live API: https://task-manager-api-vfj8.onrender.com

Note: hosted on Render's free tier — the first request after inactivity may take 30-60 seconds to respond while the service spins up.

Features

• User registration and login with JWT authentication
• Password hashing with bcrypt
• Full CRUD for tasks (create, read, update, delete)
• Ownership-based authorization — users can only access their own tasks
• Input validation with express-validator
• Centralized error handling
• Pagination, filtering, and sorting on task listing
• Security middleware: helmet, rate limiting, NoSQL injection sanitization
• Automated integration tests with Jest and Supertest
• Request logging with morgan

Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js
• Framework: Express
• Database: MongoDB with Mongoose
• Auth: JSON Web Tokens (JWT), bcrypt
• Validation: express-validator
• Testing: Jest, Supertest, mongodb-memory-server
• Security: helmet, express-rate-limit, express-mongo-sanitize

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• MongoDB (local or Atlas)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/DevanshDahiya/Task-Manager-API.git
cd task-manager-api
npm install

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory:

PORT=3000 MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string JWT_SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key JWT_EXPIRE=7d NODE_ENV=development

Running the app

# development (auto-restarts on changes)
npm run dev

# production
npm start

Running tests

npm test

API Endpoints

Auth

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/auth/register	Register a new user
POST	/api/auth/login	Log in and receive a JWT

Tasks (all require Authorization: Bearer <token>)

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/tasks	Create a new task
GET	/api/tasks	Get all tasks for the logged-in user (supports ?status, ?priority, ?sortBy, ?order, ?page, ?limit)
GET	/api/tasks/:id	Get a single task by ID
PUT	/api/tasks/:id	Update a task
DELETE	/api/tasks/:id	Delete a task

Example Request

Register

POST /api/auth/register
{
  "username": "user",
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "password": "securepass123"
}

Create a task

POST /api/tasks
Authorization: Bearer <your_token>
{
  "title": "Finish project README",
  "priority": "high",
  "dueDate": "2026-07-20"
}

Project Structure

├── controller/ ├── database/ ├── middleware/ ├── models/ ├── routes/ ├── tests/ ├── utils/ ├── app.js └── server.js

What I Learned

Building this project involved debugging real issues beyond tutorial-level problems — environment variable mismatches, bcrypt hook errors, Mongoose middleware pitfalls, Express version incompatibilities with third-party middleware, and structuring an app to be testable independently of its running server.