JobPortal

Production-ready AI-powered job aggregator with:

• Django REST backend (JWT auth, ingestion workers, assistant APIs)
• Next.js App Router frontend (jobs listing/detail/dashboard/auth)

Architecture

Frontend (Next.js + TypeScript + Tailwind + Framer Motion)
        |
        v
Backend API (Django REST + JWT)
        |
        v
Service Layer (ingestion, ranking, assistant)
        |
        +--> MySQL (core data)
        +--> Redis (Celery broker/result + optional cache)
        +--> Meilisearch (optional search index)

Ingestion flow:

Celery Beat -> Redis Queue -> Celery Workers -> Normalize/Dedupe -> MySQL -> Meilisearch

Implemented Features

Backend

• JWT auth with refresh tokens
• User profile support (GET/PATCH /api/auth/me)
• Job listing, detail, and search APIs
• Save job and application tracking APIs
• Hybrid ranking: Meilisearch + lexical + recency fallback
• AI assistant endpoints (job discovery, resume help, eligibility guidance)
• Compliant ingestion pipeline:
  • API sources
  • company/scraper sources (with robots.txt checks)
  • configurable request delays
  • source attribution + dedupe (title+company+location)

Frontend

• Landing page
• Job listing page with filters, pagination, loading skeletons
• Job detail page with save/apply actions
• Dashboard with:
  • saved jobs
  • AI recommendations
  • profile editor (headline/skills/bio/full name/resume URL)
• Auth pages (login/register)
• Protected dashboard redirect (/dashboard -> login when unauthenticated)

API Endpoints

Auth

• POST /api/auth/register
• POST /api/auth/login
• POST /api/auth/refresh
• GET /api/auth/me
• PATCH /api/auth/me

Jobs

• GET /api/jobs
• GET /api/jobs/{id}
• GET /api/jobs/search

User Actions

• POST /api/jobs/save
• POST /api/jobs/apply
• GET /api/user/saved

Assistant

• POST /api/assistant/chat
• GET /api/assistant/recommendations

Project Structure

career_aggregator/   Django settings + celery
api/                 REST API serializers/views/urls
jobs/                Models, tasks, migrations, admin, seed command
services/            ingestion/search/assistant services
frontend/            Next.js App Router app

Backend Setup

From project root:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py seed_sources

Run backend:

python manage.py runserver

Run workers (separate terminals):

celery -A career_aggregator worker -l info
celery -A career_aggregator beat -l info

Frontend Setup

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

Open:

• Frontend: http://127.0.0.1:3000
• Backend API: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api

Important Environment Variables

Backend (.env)

• DB: DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_HOST, DB_PORT
• Redis/Celery: REDIS_URL, CELERY_BROKER_URL, CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND
• JWT: JWT_ACCESS_MINUTES, JWT_REFRESH_DAYS
• CORS/CSRF:
  • CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS
  • CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS
• Optional integrations:
  • MEILISEARCH_URL, MEILISEARCH_API_KEY
  • OPENAI_API_KEY, OPENAI_MODEL

Frontend (frontend/.env.local)

• NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000/api

Ingestion Quick Test

After seed_sources, run one-shot API ingestion:

python manage.py shell -c "from jobs.models import Source, SourceType; from services.ingestion_service import ingest_api_source; [print(ingest_api_source(s)) for s in Source.objects.filter(type=SourceType.API, is_active=True)]"

Then verify:

• http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/jobs
• http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/jobs/search?q=dev

Troubleshooting

Frontend shows Failed to fetch

1. Ensure backend is running on 127.0.0.1:8000.
2. Check API directly in browser: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/jobs/search?q=dev.
3. Verify CORS vars in .env:
   • CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://127.0.0.1:3000,http://localhost:3000
   • CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS=http://127.0.0.1:3000,http://localhost:3000
4. Restart backend + frontend.

Next.js dev errors with Node 25 (middleware-manifest.json / unstable HMR)

• Recommended Node runtime: 20.x.
• frontend/package.json includes engine constraints (>=20 <23).
• If nvm is unavailable, install/use Node 20 via your preferred version manager/package tool.
• Clean and reinstall frontend deps:

cd frontend
rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json .next
npm install
npm run dev

Legal/Compliance Guardrails

• No login-protected scraping
• robots.txt checks for company/scraper sources
• Rate limiting between ingestion requests
• Source attribution always stored (source, source_url)
• Description stored as snippet (not full copied pages)

Notes

• Legacy Django template pages still exist from earlier iteration.
• Current product frontend is the frontend/ Next.js app.
• Assistant uses OpenAI only when configured; otherwise uses deterministic fallback responses.