Expense Tracker

A full-stack Expense Tracker built with the MERN Stack, containerized using Docker, and automatically deployed to an AWS EC2 instance using GitHub Actions CI/CD.

This project was built to learn Docker, Docker Compose, AWS deployment, and CI/CD automation while developing a production-like full-stack application.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Category	Technologies
Frontend	React.js, Vite, NGINX
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB
DevOps	Docker, Docker Compose, GitHub Actions, AWS EC2, SSH, rsync

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Features

• Add, edit and delete expenses
• Search by title
• Filter by category
• Filter by date
• Expense summary dashboard
• Category-wise analytics
• CSV export
• Responsive UI
• Dockerized development & production setup
• Automated deployment to AWS EC2

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Architecture

                    GitHub Repository
                           │
                    Push to main
                           │
                  GitHub Actions CI/CD
                           │
                     SSH + rsync
                           │
                        AWS EC2
                           │
                   Docker Compose
                           │
        ┌────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
        │            │             │
    Frontend      Backend      MongoDB
     (NGINX)      Express

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Project Structure

.
├── README.md
├── backend
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   ├── Dockerfile.dev
│   ├── package.json
│   └── src
│       ├── models
│       ├── routes
│       └── server.js
│
├── frontend
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   ├── Dockerfile.dev
│   ├── nginx
│   │   └── default.conf
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── src
│   └── vite.config.js
│
├── scripts
│   └── ec2.bootstrap.sh
│
├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── deploy.yml
│
├── docker-compose.yml
└── docker-compose-dev.yml

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Local Development

Start the development environment with hot reload.

docker compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up

Run the production setup locally.

docker compose up -d --build

Open the application:

http://localhost

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Docker Services

Service	Description
frontend	React application served by NGINX
backend	Express REST API
mongo	MongoDB database

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CI/CD Workflow

Every push to the main branch automatically deploys the latest version to the AWS EC2 server.

Developer
    │
git push
    │
GitHub Actions
    │
Checkout Repository
    │
Configure SSH
    │
Bootstrap EC2
    │
Sync Project (rsync)
    │
Create .env Files
    │
Docker Compose Build
    │
Restart Containers
    │
Deployment Complete

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What I Learned

Docker & Docker Compose

• Building multi-container applications
• Managing development and production environments
• Networking, volumes, and container lifecycle
• Running React, Node.js, and MongoDB together

AWS & GitHub Actions

• Deploying Docker applications to AWS EC2
• Automating deployments with GitHub Actions
• Managing environment variables using GitHub Secrets
• SSH-based deployment with rsync and Docker Compose

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Troubleshooting

During development, I encountered and resolved several real-world issues:

• Vite Hot Reload not working inside Docker
• Docker Compose networking and volume configuration
• AWS EC2 server setup and permissions
• Environment variable management
• Docker image cleanup and rebuilds

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Useful Commands

Start containers

docker compose up -d

Build containers

docker compose up -d --build

View logs

docker compose logs -f

List running containers

docker compose ps

Stop containers

docker compose down

Remove containers and volumes

docker compose down -v

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Future Improvements

• User Authentication
• Budget Management
• Monthly Reports
• Charts & Analytics
• HTTPS with SSL
• MongoDB Atlas
• Monitoring & Logging

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License

This project is intended for learning, portfolio demonstration, and showcasing modern full-stack development with Docker and CI/CD.