🧠 Filog — Backend Showcase

Tech Stack

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📘 Overview

Filog is a production-ready backend for a modern blogging platform. This repository contains a complete custom backend powering authentication, posts, comments, likes, follows, avatar generation, and dynamic Open Graph (OG) image generation. The frontend (React) is present as a demo; this repository is presented as a backend engineering case study.

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🚀 Core Features

Authentication & Security

• JWT-based authentication with best-practice token handling.
• Google OAuth 2.0 integration for social login.
• Password hashing and input validation middleware.

Social Blogging Functionality

• Create / Edit / Delete posts with ownership-enforced authorization.
• Commenting system and like/unlike semantics.
• Follow / unfollow user relationships.
• Atomic MongoDB updates ($addToSet, $pull) and conflict-safe patterns to prevent race conditions.

OG & Avatar

• Server-side dynamic Open Graph image generation (Vercel functions / SSR approach documented).
• DiceBear avatar generation integrated and handled asynchronously during profile creation.

Infrastructure & Devops

• Dockerfile for containerized builds and simple deployment.
• Environment-driven configuration (separate dev/prod flow).
• Centralized error handling and request validation.

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🧱 Repo Layout (high-level)

Filog/
├── Backend/                 # Backend source (primary showcase)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── config/
│   │   ├── controllers/
│   │   ├── middleware/
│   │   ├── models/
│   │   ├── routes/
│   │   └── utils/           # OG generator, avatar helpers, email, etc.
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   ├── package.json
│   └── tsconfig.json
├── Frontend/                # Demo React UI (marked experimental in this README)
└── README.md

Note: The Frontend is a demo UI (React, GSAP animations mentioned). The backend is the production-quality portion of this project and is the primary focus.

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🔍 API Summary

Method	Endpoint	Description	Auth
POST	/api/auth/register	Register user	❌
POST	/api/auth/login	Login and receive JWT	❌
GET	/api/users/:id	Get user profile	✅
POST	/api/posts	Create post	✅
GET	/api/posts/:id	View post	❌
PATCH	/api/posts/:id	Edit post (owner only)	✅
DELETE	/api/posts/:id	Delete post (owner only)	✅
POST	/api/posts/:id/comments	Add comment	✅
POST	/api/posts/:id/like	Like / unlike	✅
POST	/api/users/:id/follow	Follow / unfollow	✅

(Add precise request/response schemas or link an OpenAPI/Swagger file if you add one.)

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⚡ Quick Local Setup

1. Clone & install

git clone https://github.com/dev-raghvendra/Filog.git
cd Filog/Backend
npm install

2. Create .env (example)

MONGO_URI=<your_mongo_uri>
JWT_SECRET=<your_jwt_secret>
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=<id>
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=<secret>
PORT=4000

3. Run in development

npm run dev
# or
npm run build
npm start

Server defaults to http://localhost:4000 (update PORT in .env as needed).

Docker (optional)

docker build -t filog-backend .
docker run --env-file .env -p 4000:4000 filog-backend

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🧪 Quick API Examples

# Register
curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/auth/register \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"Raghvendra","email":"user@example.com","password":"P@ssw0rd"}'

# Login (returns JWT)
curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/auth/login \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"email":"user@example.com","password":"P@ssw0rd"}'

# Create post (replace <JWT>)
curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <JWT>" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"title":"Hello","content":"This is Filog backend."}'

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🧠 Design Decisions (why this is backend-first)

• Stateless JWT for horizontal scaling and simpler session handling.
• MongoDB atomic operations to maintain consistent follower/like counts under concurrency.
• OG generation server-side to provide reliable social previews (documented use of Vercel functions).
• Async avatar creation (DiceBear) to keep user flows snappy.
• Dockerized for CI/CD-friendly deployment.

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✅ What I implemented (from repo)

• Custom Node.js + TypeScript backend (core logic implemented).
• Google OAuth & JWT authentication flows.
• DiceBear avatar integration.
• Server-side Open Graph generation (Vercel functions / SSR approach referenced).
• Frontend demo implemented with React + GSAP (kept as demo; not the focus).

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📦 Suggested repo additions (quick wins)

1. Add Backend/README.md (this file) and move original README content into Frontend/README.md or README-OLD.md.
2. Add an openapi.json (small skeleton) and link it from this README.
3. Export a Postman collection and link it for reviewers to try the API.
4. Add a short 60–90s demo GIF showing curl → post creation → DB entry.
5. Mark Frontend as Experimental / Demo at the top to guide reviewers.

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🗾 Future improvements (roadmap)

• Add Jest + Supertest integration tests for auth and post flows.
• Redis caching for hot resources and rate-limiting.
• Notifications via WebSocket / real-time updates.
• CI GitHub Action which lints, runs tests and builds Docker image.

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👨‍💻 About the author

Raghvendra Misra — I built Filog’s backend from scratch to control auth, data integrity, and link previews. This repo showcases backend design, authentication flows, and production-minded patterns.

Repository: https://github.com/dev-raghvendra/Filog

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🌟 If you find this project useful or interesting, give it a star — it helps me showcase my backend work!