🌍 Travel Blog App — Backend API

Live API: my-blog-travel-app-backend.vercel.app

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📋 Project Overview

This is the REST API backend powering the Travel Blog App — a platform for sharing travel stories and experiences. It handles authentication, blog post management, and data persistence.

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👤 About the Developer

• From: Mallorca,Spain
• Hobbies: Traveling

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🚀 Project Elevator Pitch

What is it?

A RESTful API that serves the Travel Blog App frontend. It manages users, posts, and media, providing secure endpoints for all core app features.

How does it work?

Built with [Node.js + Express], the backend exposes JSON endpoints consumed by the frontend. It connects to a MongoDB database and handles authentication via JWT tokens.

Why this project?

I wanted hands-on experience building a production-grade API from scratch — including auth, data modeling, error handling, and cloud deployment — to complement my frontend skills.

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⚙️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Runtime	Node.js
Framework	Express
Database	MongoDB
Auth	JWT + bcrypt
Deployment	Vercel

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🛠️ Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.x
• npm
• A MongoDB (local or cloud)

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/FD94/backend-BlogTravelApp
cd blog-travel-app-backend

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Set up environment variables
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your values (see Environment Variables below)

Running locally

npm run dev

API will be available at http://localhost:5000

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🔧 Environment Variables

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	MongoDB connection string or PostgreSQL URL
JWT_SECRET	Secret key for signing JWT tokens
PORT	Port to run the server
FRONTEND_URL	Allowed origin for CORS (e.g., https://blog-travel-app.vercel.app)

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📡 API Endpoints

🔒 Routes marked as Protected require a valid JWT token in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer <your_token>

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🔐 Auth — /auth

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/auth/signup	Public	Register a new user
POST	/auth/login	Public	Login and receive a JWT
GET	/auth/verify	🔒 Protected	Verify a JWT and return user payload

POST /auth/signup

Creates a new user account. Returns the user object and a signed JWT

Request body:

{
	"name": "Jane Doe",
	"email": "jane@example.com",
	"password": "Secret123"
}

Response 201:

{
	"user": { "_id": "...", "email": "jane@example.com", "name": "Jane Doe" },
	"authToken": "<jwt>"
}

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POST /auth/login

Authenticates an existing user. Returns a signed JWT

Request body:

{
	"email": "jane@example.com",
	"password": "Secret123"
}

Response 200:

{
	"authToken": "<jwt>"
}

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GET /auth/verify 🔒

Verifies the JWT sent in the Authorization header and returns the decoded user payload.

Response 200:

{
	"_id": "...",
	"email": "jane@example.com",
	"name": "Jane Doe"
}

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📝 Posts — /posts

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/posts	Public	Get all posts
GET	/posts/:postId	🔒 Protected	Get a single post by ID
POST	/posts	🔒 Protected	Create a new post
PUT	/posts/:postId	🔒 Protected	Update a post by ID
DELETE	/posts/:postId	🔒 Protected	Delete a post by ID

GET /posts

Returns a list of all blog posts.

Response 200:

[
	{
		"_id": "...",
		"title": "My trip to Japan",
		"description": "It was amazing...",
		"image": "https://...",
		"author": "..."
	}
]

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GET /posts/:postId 🔒

Returns a single post by its ID.

Response 200:

{
	"_id": "...",
	"title": "My trip to Japan",
	"description": "It was amazing...",
	"image": "https://...",
	"author": "..."
}

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POST /posts 🔒

Creates a new post. The author is automatically set from the JWT payload.

Request body:

{
	"title": "My trip to Japan",
	"description": "It was amazing...",
	"image": "https://..."
}

Response 201:

{
	"_id": "...",
	"title": "My trip to Japan",
	"description": "It was amazing...",
	"image": "https://...",
	"author": "..."
}

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PUT /posts/:postId 🔒

Updates an existing post by its ID. Returns the updated document.

Request body (any updatable fields):

{
	"title": "Updated title",
	"description": "Updated description"
}

Response 200: Returns the updated post object.

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DELETE /posts/:postId 🔒

Deletes a post by its ID. Returns the deleted document.

Response 200: Returns the deleted post object.

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💬 Comments — /comments

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/comments	🔒 Protected	Add a comment to a post
GET	/comments/:postId	Public	Get all comments for a post
DELETE	/comments/:commentId	🔒 Protected	Delete a comment (owner only)

POST /comments 🔒

Creates a new comment on a post. The author is automatically set from the JWT payload.

Request body:

{
	"text": "Great post!",
	"post": "<postId>"
}

Response 201: Returns the new comment populated with post and author data.

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GET /comments/:postId

Returns all comments for a given post, with author and post populated.

Response 200:

[
	{
		"_id": "...",
		"text": "Great post!",
		"author": { "_id": "...", "name": "Jane Doe" },
		"post": { "_id": "...", "title": "My trip to Japan" }
	}
]

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DELETE /comments/:commentId 🔒

Deletes a comment by its ID. Only the comment's author can delete it.

Response 200:

{ "message": "Comentario eliminado" }

Response 403 if the requesting user is not the comment's author.

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🔗 Links

Resource	URL
🔌 Live API	my-blog-travel-app-backend.vercel.app
🌐 Frontend App	blog-travel-app.vercel.app
📁 Frontend Repo	github.com/your-username/blog-travel-app

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Thank You for visiting! ✈️