🎯 Course Search Backend (Spring Boot + Elasticsearch)

This is a lightweight backend application for searching and filtering courses using Elasticsearch. It supports full-text search, autocomplete, and optional fuzzy matching — built with Spring Boot, Java 17, and tested using Testcontainers.

🚀 Getting Started

1. Prerequisites

• ✅ Java 17
• ✅ Maven 3+
• ✅ Docker (for Elasticsearch container)

2. Clone the Repository
git clone https://github.com/your-username/course-search.git

cd course-search

3. Start Elasticsearch with Docker Compose
docker-compose up -d

4. Run the Spring Boot Application
./mvnw spring-boot:run

5. Verify Initialization
You should see:
👍Courses indexed into Elasticsearch: 50

📌 Features

• 🔍 Full-text search (title, description, category)
• ⚡ Autocomplete suggestions (prefix-based)
• 🤖 Fuzzy matching for typo-tolerance
• 📝 50 sample courses indexed at startup
• 🧪 Integration tests using Testcontainers + JUnit 5

🧱 Tech Stack

Tech	Version
Java	17
Spring Boot	3.2+
Elasticsearch	7.17
Spring Data ES	✅
Jackson	✅
Testcontainers	1.19.0
JUnit 5	5.12.2

🗂️ Project Structure

src/
├── main/
│   ├── java/com/example/coursesearch/
│   │   ├── config/         # Jackson & other app-level configs
│   │   ├── controller/     # API endpoints
│   │   ├── document/       # Elasticsearch @Document definitions
│   │   ├── repository/     # Spring Data Elasticsearch repositories
│   │   └── service/        # Business logic (search, indexing)
│   └── resources/
│       ├── application.yml
│       └── sample-courses.json  # Initial 50-course dataset
└── test/                   # Integration testing with Testcontainers

🔎 API Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
/api/search?q=keyword	GET	Full-text search across title, description, category
/api/search/suggest?q=term	GET	Autocomplete suggestions using Elasticsearch completion field

🧪 Running Tests

./mvnw test

This project uses Testcontainers to spin up a real Elasticsearch instance. Useful to ensure your logic works on actual Elasticsearch behavior.

🙌 How to Use This Project

1. Clone the repo
2. Start Elasticsearch using docker-compose up -d
3. Run the Spring Boot backend using ./mvnw spring-boot:run
4. Open Postman or your browser and hit:
• http://localhost:9090/api/search?q=math
• http://localhost:9090/api/search/suggest?q=art

👍 Contributing

This project is beginner-friendly. You are welcome to fork the repo and open PRs for improvements or suggestions.

🙏 Acknowledgement

Built as a learning project to explore Spring Boot and Elasticsearch integration. Thanks to the developer community for docs, samples, and support.

👤 Author

Maintained by Hrishabh.
Built with passion, patience, and a focus on clean backend design.