👨‍💻 Codemate - Connect with Coders

Codemate is a production-grade social media platform built using the MERN stack, designed to help developers connect, collaborate, and communicate. It includes authentication, real-time chat, reminders, notifications, and payment integration — all deployed securely using cloud infrastructure and modern DevOps practices.

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🌐 Live Site

🔗 https://codemate.tech

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📌 Features

• 🔐 JWT Authentication with secure login, signup, and logout
• 🛡️ Security: Rate-limiting, CAPTCHA, and route protection
• 💬 Real-Time Chat using Socket.IO for connected users
• 🤝 Connection System: Send and accept connection requests to chat
• 📅 Daily Reminder Service using node-cron, Redis & BullMQ to email users about pending requests
• 💳 Razorpay Payment Integration with Webhook-based order handling
• ✅ API Unit Testing using Vitest with 80%+ code coverage
• 🌍 Production Deployment on AWS EC2 with:
  • NGINX reverse proxy
  • SSL/TLS via OpenSSL & Cloudflare
  • Domain: codemate.tech

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Tech
Frontend	React.js
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB + Mongoose
Auth	JWT, bcrypt, cookie-parser
Real-time Comm.	Socket.IO
Job Queue	BullMQ + Redis
Scheduler	Node-Cron
Payment Gateway	Razorpay + Webhooks
Email Service	Nodemailer
Security	express-rate-limit, CAPTCHA (Cloudflare)
Testing	Vitest
Deployment	AWS EC2, NGINX, Cloudflare SSL

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📤 Hosting & DevOps Deployment

• 🚀 Single EC2 Instance Deployment on AWS with both frontend and backend hosted on same machine
• 🌐 NGINX Reverse Proxy: Routes /api to backend and serves React build for all other routes
• 🔒 OpenSSL Certificates: Self-signed SSL certificates configured for HTTPS using NGINX
• 🌩️ Cloudflare Integration:
  • Free SSL layer on top of server TLS
  • Managed DNS and CAPTCHA protection
• 🔁 Webhook Handling:
  • Razorpay webhooks for payment validation
  • Secure middleware validation of webhook signatures
• 📩 Email Queue via Redis:
  • Scalable queue-based email service using Redis + BullMQ
  • Handles retries and failure states
• 🧪 Test Coverage + CI Ready:
  • Codebase tested using Vitest
  • Configured for 80%+ coverage
  • Easy to plug into CI/CD pipelines
• 📆 Job Scheduling via Node-Cron:
  • Sends reminder emails every day at 9:30 AM
  • Runs as a background service

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🔁 System Design Highlights

Codemate is designed with modular, scalable, and production-grade architecture in mind:

🔄 1. Queue-Based Email Notification System

• Uses Redis + BullMQ for background jobs
• Prevents API blocking and ensures delivery via retry attempts
• Emails include daily reminders about connection requests

💬 2. Real-Time Messaging with Socket.IO

• Two-way real-time connection using WebSocket protocol
• Chat room created dynamically based on approved connection
• Enables instant dev-to-dev communication

🧱 3. Scalable Architecture

• Backend follows controller-service-repository pattern
• Clear separation of concerns for maintainability
• Easily adaptable for microservices in future phases

🔐 4. Secure Authentication Flow

• JWT tokens are stored in HTTP-only cookies
• Login endpoint rate-limited to avoid brute-force attacks
• Signup integrated with CAPTCHA challenge (via Cloudflare)

⚙️ 5. Background Job Scheduling

• Node-Cron used to run daily jobs
• Integrates with BullMQ queue for processing tasks
• Lightweight but production-ready scheduler

🧪 6. API Testing & Coverage

• Every core route is covered by Vitest unit tests
• Can be extended with E2E and integration tests
• Ensures regression-proof development process

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📃 API Endpoints

🔐 Auth Routes

POST   /api/auth/login       // Login (with rate-limiting)
POST   /api/auth/signup      // Signup (with CAPTCHA)
POST   /api/auth/logout      // Logout (protected route)

🤝 Connection Routes

POST   /api/connection/send/:status/:toUserId       // Send connection request
POST   /api/connection/review/:status/:requestId    // Accept/Reject connection request

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 User Routes

GET    /api/user/feed                  // Get developer feed
GET    /api/user/chat/:targetUserId   // Get chat with user
GET    /api/user/requests/received    // Received connection requests
GET    /api/user/connections          // All approved connections

👤 Profile Routes

GET    /api/profile/view
PATCH  /api/profile/edit
DELETE /api/profile/delete

💰 Payment Routes

POST   /api/payment/create     // Create Razorpay order
POST   /api/payment/webhook    // Razorpay webhook handler
GET    /api/payment/verify     // Confirm payment

✅ Testing

• Unit tests for backend APIs using Vitest

• Achieves 80%+ code coverage

• Ensures robustness and catches edge cases