Good Shop

A simple full‑stack blog demo with a Node/Express backend and a Next.js frontend.

Repository layout

• backend/ — Express API, MongoDB models, middleware for auth and image upload(Cloudinary)
• frontend/ — Next.js (app router) frontend with pages, components and client API helpers.

Key backend files:

• backend/server.js — main server entry.
• backend/src/models/ — Mongoose models (User, BlogPost).
• backend/src/routes/ — API routes (authRoutes.js, blogRoutes.js).
• backend/.env.example — example environment variables required by the backend.

Key frontend files:

• frontend/src/app/ — Next.js app pages and admin area.
• frontend/src/components/ — UI components.
• frontend/src/lib/api.js and frontend/src/lib/secureApi.js — client API helpers.
• frontend/.env — environment variables for the frontend (e.g. NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL).

Prerequisites

• Node.js (recommend v18 or later)
• npm (bundled with Node) or yarn
• MongoDB database (Atlas)
• A Cloudinary account for image uploads

Environment variables

Backend: copy backend/.env.example to backend/.env and update values. Example keys found in the project:

CLOUDINARY_URL=cloudinary://<api_key>:<api_secret>@<cloud_name>
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret_here
MONGO_URI=mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@your-cluster.mongodb.net/<dbname>

Frontend: frontend/.env currently contains:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

Adjust NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL to point to your running backend API.

Install and run (development)

Open two terminals (one for backend, one for frontend):

Backend (from repo root):

cd backend
npm install
# create .env from example and edit values
cp .env.example .env
# start dev server (uses nodemon)
npm run dev

Notes:

• npm run dev in backend runs nodemon server.js.
• npm.start will run node server.js (for production/startup without nodemon).

Frontend:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The frontend runs on http://localhost:3000 by default. It uses NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL to talk to the backend.

Build and run (production)

Import project repo to vercel and deploy the frontend and backend separately using the required environment variables.

Common tasks & tips

• If uploads fail, confirm CLOUDINARY_URL is set and valid.
• Check backend logs for MongoDB connection errors; ensure MONGO_URI is reachable.

Where to look in the code

• Authentication logic: backend/src/middleware/authMiddleware.js and backend/src/routes/authRoutes.js.
• Cloudinary uploads: backend/src/middleware/cloudinaryMiddleware.js and usage in routes.
• Client API usage: frontend/src/lib/api.js and frontend/src/lib/secureApi.js.