🎭 Backdrop

Backdrop is a concurrent, asynchronous task orchestration service built with Go. It allows users to upload files, trigger background processing, track progress, and optionally cancel jobs in-flight — all with real-time feedback and robust status tracking.

---

📌 Features

• Asynchronous file processing (non-blocking)
• Unique upload URLs per request
• Task cancellation support (server-side invalidation)
• Polling endpoint for task status
• Clean context-aware Goroutine management
• JWT-based user authentication
• Task persistence via PostgreSQL

---

🧰 Tech Stack

Component	Purpose
Go	Core backend logic (goroutines, context, channel-based workers)
PostgreSQL	Task metadata, user data, and login tokens
Redis	Fast pub/sub and task state caching
Polling	Task status updates to frontend
Docker	Containerization for local or cloud deployment

---

📁 Project Structure

backdrop/
├── api
│   └── user
│   └── task
├── cmd
│   └── server
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── internal
│   ├── middleware
│   ├── router
│   └── util
├── migration.sql
├── pkg
│   ├── constants
│   ├── crypto
│   ├── database
│   ├── formatter
│   ├── text
│   └── validator
├── README.md
└── TODO.md

---

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.20+
• PostgreSQL running locally

Clone the project

git clone https://github.com/rranand/backdrop.git
cd backdrop

Initialize Go module

go mod tidy

Setup .env file

PORT=8080
DB_URL=postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/backdrop?sslmode=disable
JWT_SECRET=your-secret-key

---

📬 API Overview

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/auth/login	Login and receive token
POST	/task/request	Request a file upload session
POST	/task/upload/:id	Upload file to task
POST	/task/cancel/:id	Cancel ongoing task
GET	/task/status/:id	Poll task status
GET	/task/result/:id	Fetch result (if completed)

---

📈 Future Enhancements

• WebSocket-based live task updates
• Retry policy for failed tasks
• Admin dashboard (task queues, worker health)
• Multi-user role support
• Metrics + alerting (Prometheus/Grafana)

---

🧠 Learnings and Concepts Covered

• Goroutines, context cancelation, worker pools
• Safe concurrent access to shared resources
• Token-based authentication
• Structuring scalable Go services
• Database schema design for async systems

---

📄 License

MIT © 2025 Rohit Anand