Northcoders News API

Check out the hosted version

My goal was to build the back-end for a news app project

This project is a Node.js REST API with GET, POST, PATCH and DELETE requests. Using node-postgres to interact with the PostgreSQL database. The client can create and manage new articles, users, topics and comments. It is an example of a back-end service allowing access to application data programmatically which serves the information to the front-end architecture.

How I worked on this project

• I built this REST API using TDD
• I worked with tasks on kanban board see here
• I used feature branches and pull requests see here & here

How to navigate this project

• Use MVC pattern: Model handles and then sends data to controller see here
• Testing using Jest see here & here
• REST API available endpoints see here

Why I built the project this way

• Express JS is robust and more concise than setting up a server using http
• Node-postgres allows simple interfacing with PostgreSQL database and works well with Express
• Testing using Jest (unit testing), supertest (integration testing) & Husky to test on every commit

If I had more time I would change this

• Add more endpoints - for article filtering and user authentication
• Integrate pagination by adding limits number of responses
• POST new topics & DELETE articles by ID

Instructions

1. Clone the repository
2. Install dependencies with npm install (or yarn)

   npm install

3. Dotenv - create two .env files to connect to the database
   • .env.development

   PGDATABASE=nc_news

   • .env.test

   PGDATABASE=nc_news_test

4. Seed local database

   npm run setup-dbs

5. Run tests with

   npm test

6. Start server with

npm start

Minimum Version Requirements

• Node.js: v17.3.0
• Postgres: 14.1