Messages service

The Communities service is designed to facilitate the creation, management, and interaction of user communities within the platform. It will handle:

• Messages
• Members
• Roles
• Channels

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Rust and Cargo
• sqlx-cli

Quickstart

Launch postgres:

docker compose up -d mongodb

Create the .env file to let the Mongo client know how to connect to the database:

cp .env.example .env

Launch the API server:

cargo run --bin api

The application runs two servers on separate ports:

• Health server on http://localhost:9090 - Isolated health checks (prevents DDOS on API)
  • GET /health - Health check with database connectivity
• API server on http://localhost:3001 - Main application endpoints
  • Future business logic endpoints will be added here

This dual-server architecture provides DDOS protection by isolating health checks from API traffic.

Configuration

You can pass down some configuration using --help:

cargo run --bin api -- --help

You can now see all the possible way to configure the service:

Communities API Server

Usage: api [OPTIONS] --database-password <database_password> --jwt-secret-key <jwt_secret_key>

Options:
      --database-rui <URI>
          [env: DATABASE_URI=] [default: mongodb://localhost:27017/messages]
      --database-name <database_name>
          [env: DATABASE_NAME=] [default: communities]
      --jwt-secret-key <jwt_secret_key>
          [env: JWT_SECRET_KEY=a-string-secret-at-least-256-bits-long]
      --server-api-port <api_port>
          [env: API_PORT=3001] [default: 8080]
      --server-health-port <HEALTH_PORT>
          [env: HEALTH_PORT=9090] [default: 8081]
  -h, --help
          Print help

Persistence

To persist data we use MongoDB.

Testing

This repository includes unit and integration tests across the core and API layers.

• Run all tests for the core crate:

cargo test

• Run a single test binary (example):

cargo test -p messages_core --test mongo_repo_integration -- --nocapture

Integration tests that exercise the MongoDB-backed repository will automatically try to start a temporary MongoDB container using the docker CLI if no MONGO_TEST_URI environment variable is provided. This means in most cases you can run cargo test without additional setup as long as Docker is installed and the current user can run Docker commands.

If you prefer to run tests against an existing MongoDB instance, set the following environment variables:

• MONGO_TEST_URI — connection URI (e.g. mongodb://localhost:27017)
• MONGO_TEST_DB — optional database name (defaults to message_test_db)

Example (use local Mongo instance):

export MONGO_TEST_URI='mongodb://localhost:27017'
export MONGO_TEST_DB='message_test_db'
cargo test -p messages_core --test mongo_repo_integration -- --nocapture

If Docker is not available and MONGO_TEST_URI is not set, the Mongo integration test will be skipped so the test suite still runs.

Where tests live:

• core/tests/ — unit and integration tests for the core business logic and repositories
• api/tests/ — HTTP integration tests for the API handlers

If you run into permission errors when starting Docker containers from tests, make sure your user is in the docker group or run the tests from an environment where the Docker daemon is reachable.