🌐 Full Stack Social Media Application

A modern full-stack social media app built with React (Frontend) and Node.js + Express (Backend) featuring authentication, post management, comments, likes, image uploads, caching, rate limiting, logging, and more.

---

📦 Tech Stack

🖥️ Frontend

• React.js
• React Router
• Tailwind CSS
• i18next (for localization)
• Axios

🛠️ Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB with Mongoose
• JWT Authentication
• Redis for caching
• RabbitMQ for messaging
• Cloudinary for image uploads
• Winston + Morgan for logging
• Express Rate Limiter

---

📁 Folder Structure

project-root/
├── backend/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── config/
│   │   ├── controllers/
│   │   ├── helper/
│   │   ├── logs/
│   │   ├── middlewares/
│   │   ├── models/
│   │   ├── public/
│   │   ├── routes/
│   │   └── server.js
│   └── package.json
│
├── frontend/
│   ├── public/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   ├── hooks/
│   │   ├── i18n/
│   │   ├── pages/
│   │   ├── App.js
│   │   └── main.jsx
│   └── package.json

---

🚀 Getting Started

✅ Prerequisites

• Node.js ≥ 18
• MongoDB
• Redis
• RabbitMQ
• Cloudinary account

---

🛠️ Setup Instructions

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/gucci1909/MERN-RTL-App.git
cd MERN-RTL-App

---

2. Setup Backend

cd backend
npm install

Create a .env file inside backend/:

PORT=5000
MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/social-media
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=your_cloud_name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=your_api_key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=your_api_secret
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379
RABBITMQ_URL=amqp://localhost

Run the backend server:

npm run dev

---

3. Setup Frontend

cd ../frontend
npm install

Update .env inside frontend/:

VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080

Start the frontend dev server:

npm run dev

---

📌 Key Features

🔐 Authentication

• Signup / Login
• Role-based access control
• JWT-based token auth

📄 Post Management

• Create / Read posts
• Upload images with Cloudinary

💬 Comments & Likes

• Add/Approve comments
• Like/Unlike posts

⚙️ Backend Integrations

• ✅ Rate Limiting
• ✅ Redis Caching
• ✅ Logging via Winston & Morgan
• ✅ RabbitMQ support

🌐 Frontend Perks

• Smooth UI with TailwindCSS
• Fully responsive
• Language support with i18n
• Toast notifications

---

🔗 API Overview

Action	Endpoint	Method	Auth
User Signup	/api/user/signup	POST	❌
User Login	/api/user/login	POST	❌
Get Posts	/api/post	GET	✅
Create Post	/api/post	POST	✅
Like Post	/api/like/:postId	PATCH	✅
Comment on Post	/api/comment/:postId	POST	✅

Auth = Authorization header with Bearer <token>

---

🧪 Testing

You can write tests under:

• backend/src/__tests__/
• frontend/src/__tests__/