HotTopic

A social media application that lets you share pictures and connect with others.

Built with a Golang backend (using Chi router and SendGrid for emailing), React frontend (Vite), Cloudinary for media management, PostgreSQL for data storage, and Redis for session management.

Features

• User Authentication (Signup, Signin, Logout, Password Reset)
• User Profiles (View & Update)
• Follow/Unfollow other users
• Create, Like, Unlike, Save, Unsave Posts
• View user feed, saved posts, liked posts, and posts by user
• Paginated APIs for scalable data fetching

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Tech Stack

• Backend: Golang, Chi router, SendGrid
• Database: PostgreSQL, Redis
• Frontend: React (Vite)
• Media Storage: Cloudinary
• Containerization: Docker & Docker Compose

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📱 Demo

🖥️ Desktop View

📰 Feed Page

Feed page of HotTopic as seen on a desktop browser.

👤 Profile Page

User profile page of HotTopic on desktop.

📱 Mobile View

🎞️ Interaction (GIF)

GIF showing interactive usage on a mobile.

🖼️ Static Mobile View

Static mobile screenshot demonstrating responsive layout of HotTopic.

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose installed
• PostgreSQL and Redis (if running locally without Docker)

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Environment Variables

Create .env files in the respective folders as follows:

Backend .env (./backend/.env):

POSTGRES_HOST=localhost
REDIS_HOST=localhost
POSTGRES_URL=postgres://user:password@${POSTGRES_HOST}:5432/dbname
REDIS_URL=redis://${REDIS_HOST}:6379
SENDGRID_API_KEY=your-sendgrid-api-key
SENDGRID_FROM_EMAIL=your-email@example.com
FRONTEND_ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173
PRODUCTION=true
PORT=:3000
COOKIE_DOMAIN=localhost

Frontend .env (./web/.env):

VITE_CLOUD_PRESET=your-cloudinary-preset
VITE_CLOUD_NAME=your-cloudinary-cloud-name
VITE_CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_URI=https://api.cloudinary.com/v1_1/${VITE_CLOUD_NAME}/image/upload
VITE_BACKEND_BASE_URI=http://localhost:3000

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Running with Docker Compose

The application is fully dockerized for easier deployment and development.

From the project root, run:

docker compose build --no-cache
docker compose up

This will start:

• Backend on port 3000

• Frontend on port 5173

You can access the frontend at http://localhost:5173.

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Running Locally (Without Docker)

1. Backend:

   • Ensure PostgreSQL and Redis are running locally.

   • Create and configure .env file as above in ./backend.

   • Run backend:

   cd backend
   go run ./cmd

2. Frontend:

   • Create and configure .env file as above in ./web.

   • Install dependencies and run frontend:

   cd web
   npm install
   npm run dev

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API Overview

Note: This is a high-level summary of key API routes.

• /auth
  Signup, Signin, Logout, Forgot Password, Activate Account, Reset Password

• /user
  Profile management, Follow/Unfollow, List users, Get followers/following, User feed

• /post
  Create post, Like/Unlike post, Save/Unsave post

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Contribution

Contributions are welcome! You can:

• Open issues for bugs or feature requests

• Submit pull requests with improvements or fixes

Please ensure code follows project style conventions and commit messages are meaningful.

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Thank you for using HotTopic!