LetterFlow Stories

A Medium-style blogging and publishing platform built with ASP.NET Core 10, PostgreSQL, and TinyMCE.

Features

• Rich text story editor (TinyMCE)
• Author profiles with avatars
• Blog feed with topics, featured posts, and staff picks
• Cookie-based authentication with BCrypt password hashing
• Structured application logging (Serilog → JSON files + in-memory viewer at /Logs)
• Swagger API docs at /swagger

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	ASP.NET Core 10 MVC
Database	PostgreSQL via EF Core + Npgsql
Auth	Cookie auth + BCrypt.Net
Logging	Serilog (file sink, JSON formatter)
Editor	TinyMCE 6
CSS	Custom (Medium-inspired)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• PostgreSQL running locally

Setup

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_REPO.git
   cd YOUR_REPO

2. Copy the example config and fill in your values

   cp LetterTemplatePractice/appsettings.json LetterTemplatePractice/appsettings.Development.json

   Edit appsettings.Development.json:

   {
     "ConnectionStrings": {
       "DefaultConnection": "Host=localhost;Database=letterflow;Username=YOUR_USER;Password=YOUR_PASSWORD"
     },
     "Seed": {
       "AdminUsername": "admin",
       "AdminEmail": "admin@example.com",
       "AdminPassword": "YourStrongPassword123!"
     }
   }

3. Apply migrations

   cd LetterTemplatePractice
   dotnet ef database update

4. Run

   dotnet run

   App starts at https://localhost:7205

Project Structure

LetterTemplatePractice/   ← Main ASP.NET Core web app
Logging/                  ← Shared class library (Serilog logger)

License

MIT