Job Application Tracker

A full-stack job application tracking app built with Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Prisma, and NextAuth.

What It Does

• Sign in with a seeded demo user.
• Create, view, edit, archive, and delete job applications.
• Track status changes with history.
• Search and filter applications.
• View dashboard counts by status.

Local Setup

1. Copy .env.example to .env.
2. Update DATABASE_URL if your PostgreSQL credentials are different.
3. Install dependencies with npm install.
4. Start PostgreSQL locally. If you use Docker, run docker compose up -d.
5. Run npm run prisma:migrate -- --name init.
6. Run npm run db:seed.
7. Run npm run dev.
8. Sign in with demo@example.com and password123.

Testing

• Run unit tests with npm test.
• Run browser flow tests with npm run test:e2e.
• Run the full test suite with npm run test:all.
• End-to-end tests require PostgreSQL to be running and the schema to be migrated.
• GitHub Actions runs migrations, unit tests, production build, and browser tests on pushes and pull requests.

Deployment

This app needs a Node.js host plus a PostgreSQL database. The simplest setup is Vercel for the Next.js app and Neon, Supabase, Railway, or Render PostgreSQL for the database.

Required Environment Variables

• DATABASE_URL: production PostgreSQL connection string.
• NEXTAUTH_SECRET: long random secret. Generate one with openssl rand -base64 32.
• NEXTAUTH_URL: deployed app URL, for example https://your-app.vercel.app.

Vercel + Hosted PostgreSQL

1. Push the repository to GitHub.

2. Create a PostgreSQL database with Neon, Supabase, Railway, or Render.

3. In Vercel, import the GitHub repository as a Next.js project.

4. Add the required environment variables in Vercel project settings.

5. Keep the default build command: npm run build.

6. Deploy the app.

7. Apply production migrations from your machine or CI:

   DATABASE_URL="your-production-database-url" npx prisma migrate deploy

8. Optional: seed a demo user in production only if you want demo credentials available:

   DATABASE_URL="your-production-database-url" npm run db:seed

Generic Node Host

• Install command: npm ci
• Build command: npm run build
• Start command: npm start
• Before starting the production app for the first time, run npx prisma migrate deploy.
• Use Node.js 24 to match the GitHub Actions workflow, or configure the host to a supported current Node.js LTS version.

Technical Highlights

• Authenticated user-owned data.
• Relational data modeling with application status history.
• Type-safe database access through Prisma.
• Server-side validation before database writes.
• Reusable create/edit form flow.
• Protected routes and server actions.