Full-stack LinkedIn clone: feed, messaging, jobs, connections, notifications, payments.
14 Node.js/TypeScript microservices, Next.js web app, Flutter mobile client, and a cross-platform Rust API client.

Demo

Video demos

Architecture

graph TB
    subgraph Clients
        Web["Web App<br/>(Next.js 15, React 19)"]
        Mobile["Mobile App<br/>(Flutter)"]
    end

    subgraph API["Cross-Platform API Client (Rust)"]
        WASM["WASM<br/>(wasm-bindgen)"]
        FFI["Native FFI<br/>(flutter_rust_bridge)"]
    end

    Web --> WASM
    Mobile --> FFI
    WASM --> GW
    FFI --> GW

    subgraph Gateway
        GW["API Gateway :8080<br/>(Express reverse proxy)"]
    end

    subgraph Services
        Auth[Auth :3001]
        User[User :3002]
        File[File :3003]
        Notif[Notification :3004]
        Post[Post :3005]
        Conn[Connection :3006]
        Admin[Admin :3007]
        Job[Job :3008]
        Company[Company :3009]
        Msg[Messaging :3010/3011]
        Payment[Payment :3014]
        Email[Email :3069]
    end

    GW --> Auth & User & File & Notif & Post & Conn & Admin & Job & Company & Msg & Payment & Email

    subgraph Infra["Infrastructure"]
        PG[(PostgreSQL 14)]
        RMQ[RabbitMQ 3]
        MinIO[MinIO]
    end

    subgraph External
        Firebase[Firebase FCM]
        Stripe[Stripe]
    end

    Services --> PG & RMQ
    File --> MinIO
    Payment --> Stripe
    Notif --> Firebase

Loading

All services share a single PostgreSQL database using a schema-per-service pattern (e.g., auth_service.users, post_service.posts). Services communicate through RabbitMQ using two patterns:

• Events (fire-and-forget): a topic exchange (system.events) routes events like USER_CREATED, FILE_DELETE, and NOTIFICATION_SEND to interested consumers.
• RPC (request-response): services expose named queues for synchronous calls. For example, the Post service calls file.file_url_rpc.queue to get presigned URLs, or user.profile_rpc.queue to resolve user profiles.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Web	Next.js 15, React 19, MUI 6, Zustand, Axios, Socket.IO
Mobile	Flutter 3.7+, BLoC, Dio, Hive, GetX
API Client	Rust, reqwest, wasm-bindgen (web), flutter_rust_bridge (mobile)
Backend	Node.js 18, Express 4, TypeScript 5
Database	PostgreSQL 14 (raw SQL, schema-per-service)
Messaging	RabbitMQ 3 (topic exchange, pub/sub + RPC)
Object Storage	MinIO (S3-compatible, presigned URLs)
Auth	JWT (30-day tokens), bcrypt, Google OAuth via Firebase
Payments	Stripe Checkout (one-time + subscriptions, webhooks)
Push Notifications	Firebase Cloud Messaging (via firebase-admin)
Real-time	Socket.IO (WebSocket server on :3011)
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, Docker Compose, VM deploy via SSH

Services

Service	Port	What it does
Auth	3001	Registration with email verification, login, Google OAuth, password reset (link or 6-digit code), ban system with expiry, admin user seeding
User	3002	Full profile CRUD (education, experience, projects, courses, skills, interests), profile/cover photo and resume uploads via File service RPC
Post	3005	Posts with media (images, video, documents), reactions, nested comments, reposts, saves, user tagging, content search, privacy levels, engagement counters
Connection	3006	Connection requests, follow/unfollow, blocking, message requests, mutual connections, 2nd-degree network, per-user privacy preferences
Messaging	3010	Conversations with file attachments, WebSocket server on :3011 for typing indicators, read receipts, online presence, multi-device support
Notification	3004	In-app notifications with pagination, push via FCM, auto-enriches payloads with user profiles via RPC
Job	3008	Job postings linked to companies, search, applications with resume upload, application status tracking, saved jobs
Company	3009	Company pages with profile/cover photos, announcements, follower system, company search, analytics
Payment	3014	Stripe Checkout for one-time purchases and recurring subscriptions, usage metering (messages/day, connections, job apps/month), webhook handling
File	3003	Upload to MinIO, presigned URL generation, file metadata. Exposes RPC queues so other services can upload files (base64 over RabbitMQ, up to 5MB)
Email	3069	Internal email storage and delivery, consumed via EMAIL_SEND events from other services
Admin	3007	Dashboard with counts across all schemas, reported content management, content moderation (delete posts/jobs), user management
Gateway	8080	Express reverse proxy routing by path prefix. Passes multipart uploads through without parsing (via x-no-parse-body header)

Project Structure

ascend/
  apps/
    web/                             # Next.js web app
    mobile/                          # Flutter mobile app
  services/
    gateway/                         # API gateway (reverse proxy)
    auth/                            # Authentication, OAuth
    user/                            # Profiles, resume, settings
    post/                            # Feed, comments, reactions
    messaging/                       # Chat (HTTP + WebSocket)
    connection/                      # Connections, follows, blocking
    notification/                    # Push and in-app notifications
    job/                             # Job posts, applications
    company/                         # Company pages, announcements
    payment/                         # Stripe subscriptions, usage limits
    file/                            # File uploads (MinIO)
    email/                           # Email delivery
    admin/                           # Admin dashboard, moderation
    gateway-reverse-proxy/           # External traffic forwarding
  packages/
    shared/                          # Backend SDK (DB pool, auth middleware, RabbitMQ, models)
    api-client/                      # Rust client (compiles to WASM for web, native FFI for mobile)
  scripts/                           # Deploy, backup, restore scripts
  docker-compose.yml                 # Production
  docker-compose.dev.yml             # Dev (hot reload, pgAdmin, exposed ports)
  docker-compose.reverse-proxy.yml   # Reverse proxy to gateway

Quick Start

Prerequisites: Docker and Docker Compose.

git clone https://github.com/MRKDaGods/ascend.git
cd ascend
cp .env.example .env
# Fill in your credentials (Stripe keys, Firebase service account, Google OAuth client IDs)
docker compose up

Gateway available at http://localhost:8080.

For development with hot reload and pgAdmin:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up

pgAdmin at http://localhost:5050. Each service port is listed in the table above.

Web app

cd apps/web
cp .env.example .env.local
# Fill in NEXT_PUBLIC_FIREBASE_* values
npm install
npm run dev

Mobile app

cd apps/mobile
cp lib/firebase_options.dart.example lib/firebase_options.dart
cp android/app/google-services.json.example android/app/google-services.json
# Fill in your Firebase config values
flutter pub get
flutter run

Documentation

Area	Guide
Backend Services	services/README.md
Web App	apps/web/README.md
Mobile App	apps/mobile/README.md
API Client (Rust)	packages/api-client/README.md
Shared Backend SDK	packages/shared/README.md
Scripts	scripts/README.md

Team

Built by students at Cairo University, Faculty of Engineering.

Backend

Name	GitHub	Area
Mohamed Ammar	@MRKDaGods	Project lead, auth, email, notifications, user, most backend services, shared SDK, API client (Rust), infra, contributions across all layers
Ali Ashraf	@3li-Ashraf	Jobs, messaging, admin
Bassem Adam	@BassemAdam	Posts, connections
Mohamed Ayman	@mohamed-ayman-28	Company, payments

Web

Name	GitHub	Area
Habiba Hammouda	@HabibaHammouda	Feed, network, components
Hana Ahmed	@Hana-Ahmed2	Jobs, search, notifications
Nouran Haridy	@nouranharidy	Profile, premium
Ruaa Tolba	@rtolba04	Chat, admin dashboard
Mehrati Sameh	@Mehrati3	Company, auth

Mobile

Name	GitHub	Area
Seif Heakal	@seifheakal	Feed, posts, profile
Mohammed Ibrahim	@M7mdddibrahim	Admin panel, routing, auth
Mohamed Tarek Afifi	@Motarek2003	Messaging, networks, settings
Maged Wadi	@MagedWadi	User profile, company
Mostafa Osama	@zcrack4i0	Jobs

DevOps

Name	GitHub	Area
Abdelrahman Hamdi	@gumfreddy	CI/CD, Docker, deployment

QA

Name	GitHub	Area
Shehab Elhadary	@shehab400	Selenium E2E tests
Hamza Ahmed	@Hamzaahmeed	Cypress E2E tests

Bonus

License

MIT