TBlog — Blogging Platform API

A RESTful backend API for a blogging platform built as a portfolio project to demonstrate backend development skills using Node.js, Express and PostgreSQL.

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About the Project

TBlog is a full-featured blogging platform API that allows users to create accounts, write and publish blog posts, interact with other writers through comments and likes, follow other users and track their writing streaks. The project was built to demonstrate real world backend development patterns including authentication, role-based access control, middleware and database design.

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Features

• User registration and login with JWT authentication
• Password hashing with bcrypt
• Role-based access control (user and admin roles)
• Create, read, update and delete blog posts
• Draft and publish functionality
• Categories and tags for posts
• Comments on posts
• Like and unlike posts
• Follow and unfollow other users
• Writing streak tracking
• Pagination on post listings
• Admin panel functionality
• Consistent API response format using sendResponse helper
• Winston logging for error and activity tracking
• Input validation and error handling throughout

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Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
Node.js	Runtime environment
Express.js	Web framework
PostgreSQL	Database
JWT	Authentication
bcrypt	Password hashing
Winston	Logging
dotenv	Environment variable management

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Database Schema

The API is built around 9 tables:

• users — stores user accounts and profile information
• posts — blog posts with draft and published status
• categories — post categories
• tags — post tags
• post_tags — many to many relationship between posts and tags
• comments — user comments on posts
• likes — post likes
• follows — user follow relationships
• streaks — writing streak tracking per user

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Architecture

The project follows a clean three layer architecture:

Route → Controller → Service

• Routes handle incoming HTTP requests and pass them to controllers
• Controllers handle request validation and call the appropriate service
• Services contain the business logic and database queries

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API Endpoints

Authentication

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/auth/register	Register a new user
POST	/auth/login	Login and receive JWT token

Posts

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/posts	Create a new post
GET	/posts	Get all published posts with pagination
GET	/posts/:id	Get a single post
PATCH	/posts/:id	Update a post
DELETE	/posts/:id	Delete a post

Comments

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/posts/:id/comments	Add a comment to a post
GET	/posts/:id/comments	Get all comments on a post
DELETE	/comments/:id	Delete a comment

Likes

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/posts/:id/like	Like a post
DELETE	/posts/:id/like	Unlike a post

Follows

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/users/:id/follow	Follow a user
DELETE	/users/:id/follow	Unfollow a user

Admin

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/admin/users	Get all users
DELETE	/admin/users/:id	Delete a user
DELETE	/admin/posts/:id	Delete any post

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18 or higher
• PostgreSQL

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Sefinah/tblog.git
cd tblog

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Create a .env file in the root directory

PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL=your_postgresql_connection_string
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

4. Run the database migrations

psql -U your_user -d your_database -f migrations/schema.sql

5. Start the server

npm start

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Environment Variables

Variable	Description
PORT	Port the server runs on
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET	Secret key for JWT signing

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What I Learned

This was my first backend project. Building TBlog taught me how to structure a Node.js API properly, design a relational database, implement secure authentication with JWT and bcrypt, write reusable middleware and handle errors consistently across an application. Everything I learned here was applied and expanded in my next project, SponsorMe.

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Author

Sefinat Hussein

• GitHub: @Sefinah
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sefinat-hussein

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