R&D Management System Starter (Node.js + Express + Supabase + React + Vite)

This starter includes:

• Backend: Node.js + Express + Supabase Auth + Supabase DB + Supabase Storage
• Frontend: React + Vite + Tailwind CSS + Axios + React Router
• Auth roles: student, faculty, hod, admin, superadmin
• Workflow:
  • Student submission → Faculty → HOD → Admin
  • Faculty submission → HOD → Admin
  • HOD submission → Admin
• 16 R&D tables with dynamic forms
• Submission logs timeline
• Department based filtering
• Faculty can add students
• HOD can add faculty
• Admin analytics
• Export to Excel / PDF
• Supabase Storage file upload support

Assumptions used

You did not provide the exact 16 R&D table names, so this starter uses these 16 academic R&D tables:

1. publications
2. patents
3. projects
4. books
5. book_chapters
6. conferences
7. workshops
8. seminars
9. certifications
10. awards
11. consultancies
12. grants
13. collaborations
14. internships_guided
15. phd_guidance
16. events_organized

Each table has a common structure plus a flexible data jsonb field so you can extend fields without changing the backend architecture.

Setup

1) Create Supabase project

Create a new Supabase project from the Supabase dashboard.

2) Run SQL

Open Supabase SQL Editor and run:

• supabase/schema.sql

This creates:

• departments
• profiles
• submissions
• submission_items
• submission_logs
• all 16 R&D tables
• storage bucket rd-files

3) Backend setup

cd backend
cp .env.example .env
npm install
npm run dev

4) Frontend setup

cd frontend
cp .env.example .env
npm install
npm run dev

Important environment variables

backend/.env

• PORT
• SUPABASE_URL
• SUPABASE_ANON_KEY
• SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY
• FRONTEND_URL
• SUPABASE_STORAGE_BUCKET

frontend/.env

• VITE_API_BASE_URL
• VITE_SUPABASE_URL
• VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY

First user bootstrap

You can create your first admin or superadmin in two ways:

1. Use Supabase dashboard Auth → Add user, then insert matching row in profiles
2. Use the backend signup endpoint with:
   • role student only for public signup
3. Use admin or superadmin created manually first, then create others from UI/API

Notes

• Backend uses Supabase service role and applies authorization in Express.
• JWT validation is done using Supabase Auth getUser(token).
• Signed URLs are generated for uploaded files on fetch.
• Frontend is intentionally minimal but functional.

API summary

Auth

• POST /api/auth/signup
• POST /api/auth/login
• GET /api/auth/me

Users

• POST /api/users/students
• POST /api/users/faculty
• GET /api/users
• GET /api/users/assigned-students

Records

• GET /api/records/meta/tables
• GET /api/records/:tableName
• GET /api/records/:tableName/:id
• POST /api/records/:tableName
• PUT /api/records/:tableName/:id
• DELETE /api/records/:tableName/:id

Submissions

• POST /api/submissions/submit/:tableName
• GET /api/submissions
• GET /api/submissions/:id
• POST /api/submissions/approve/:id
• POST /api/submissions/reject/:id

Analytics

• GET /api/analytics/summary

Reference

This project follows current Supabase guidance that Auth uses JWTs, auth.getUser() can retrieve the authenticated user, and admin auth methods require a service_role key. It also follows Supabase guidance to keep application user data in public tables linked to auth.users, and to use Storage for file uploads. citeturn769903search2turn769903search3turn769903search6turn769903search7turn769903search14