mrgcohen / e-commerce

Node/Express/PostgreSQL e-commerce backend

E-Commerce Backend

Backend API for an e-commerce site built with Node.js/Express and Postgres. Live API docs here.

Table of Contents

• General Info
• Technologies Used
• Features
• Setup
• Testing
• Usage
• Project Status
• Room for Improvement
• Acknowledgements
• Contact

General Information

• Backend API for an e-commerce site built with Node.js and Express
• Endpoints for shopping, authentication, user accounts, and checkout
• Provides setup for Postgres database
• Built as a learning project, feedback appreciated!

Technologies Used

API:

• node.js - version 14.17.1
• npm - version 8.3.0
• express - version 4.17.1
• express-session - version 1.17.2
• http-errors - version 1.8.1
• jsonwebtoken - version 8.5.1
• stripe - version 8.195.0
• validator - version 13.7.0
• nodemon - version 2.0.15
• body-parser - version 1.19.0
• cookie-parser - version 1.4.6
• cors - version 2.8.5
• helmet - version 4.6.0

Database

• psql (PostgreSQL) - version 14.0
• connect-pg-simple - version 7.0.0
• pg (node-postgres) - version 8.7.1

Documentation

• swagger-jsdoc - version 1.3.0
• swagger-ui-express - version 4.3.0

Testing

• jest - version 27.4.3
• supertest - version 6.1.6
• supertest-session - version 4.1.0

Features

• User accounts that allow users to store addresses and payment methods, and set a primary address and primary payment method
• Custom hashing function for passwords
• Custom RSA authentication middleware using secure JWT
• Persistent carts that consolidate when user logs-in/registers so shopping data is not lost
• Shopping routes that allow shoppers to browse by category or search for products
• Checkout route that provides a review page before placing order
• Payment processing with Stripe
• Documentation with Swagger

Setup

To run locally, first install node_modules and generate RSA Key Pair:

npm install

Will also run install script of package.json, which will generate an RSA key pair in a .env file.

Open a PostgreSQL database of your choice. Schema with tables is located in db/init.sql. E.g., generate tables by running:

cd db
cat init.sql | psql -h [PGHOST] -U [PGUSER] -d [PGDATABASE] -w [PGPASSWORD]

Where 'PGHOST', 'PGUSER', 'PGDATABASE', and 'PGPASSWORD' are your respective Postgres host, user, database, and password values.

Add the following fields with respective values to the .env file:

# Postgres Database
PGHOST=
PGUSER=
PGDATABASE=
PGPASSWORD=
PGPORT=

# Express server
PORT=
SESSION_SECRET=

# Node.js 
NODE_ENV=

# Stripe key pair 
STRIPE_PUBLIC_KEY=
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=

Create an account with Stripe to generate a key pair. Can use a test key pair for development that will not charge cards.

Then run the app:

node index.js

Testing

To run tests, first open tests/testData.js and add associated data fields into database. Update testData.js with ID values generated by database.

Once test data is added, run:

npm test

Usage

This project can be used as a backend for an e-commerce website. The project handles various endpoints a user may need to access while online shopping such as:

• creating user accounts
• users can save addresses and payment methods to account
• displaying products and allowing query by parameter
• creating carts, and consolidating carts when a user logs in
• checkout flow and charging payments with Stripe
• order summaries accessed through user account

View live API documentation here.

Project Status

Project is: in progress

Room for Improvement

Room for improvement:

• Encryption of data in database
• Add more indexes to the database for faster queries

To do:

• Allow guest checkout flow
• Send confirmation email after POSTing order
• Build demo frontend site

Acknowledgements

This project was built as part of Codecademy's Full-Stack Engineer curriculum. Project prompt of creating an e-commerce backend was provided by Codecademy as well as some helpful resources for using Express and Postgres. No starter code was provided.

Thanks to @zachgoll for his very thorough User Authentication tutorial for working with Passport.js and building custom authentication software. Full tutorial can be found here.

Contact

Created by @carokrny - feel free to contact me!