Backend Project

A professional backend service scaffold built with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.

Overview

This repository provides a clean backend foundation for a production-ready web application. It includes:

• Express server setup with modern middleware configuration
• MongoDB connection using Mongoose
• Environment-based configuration with dotenv
• CORS support, JSON parsing, URL-encoded body handling, cookie parsing, and static file serving

Project Structure (detailed)

• src/index.js - application bootstrap and server startup (loads ./env, connects to MongoDB and starts the HTTP server)
• src/app.js - Express app instance, middleware registration, and static file serving
• src/db/index.js - MongoDB connection helper using mongoose (connectDB)
• src/constants.js - shared constants (e.g. database name firstdb)
• src/models/ - Mongoose data models
  • user.model.js - User model (username, email, fullName, avatar, password, refreshToken, watchHistory)
  • video.model.js - Video model (file, thumbnail, title, description, duration, views, owner)
• src/utils/ - helper utilities
  • ApiError.js - custom error class to standardize API errors
  • ApiResponse.js - standard API response wrapper
  • asyncHandler.js - convenience wrapper for async route handlers
• public/ - static assets served by Express
• src/controllers/ - application controllers (add your route handlers here)
• src/middleware/ - custom Express middleware
• readme.md - this file
• package.json - project metadata, dependencies and npm scripts

Key files explained

• src/index.js: Initializes environment variables from ./env, calls connectDB() and starts the HTTP server.
• src/app.js: Creates and exports the Express app instance, enables CORS (reads CORS_ORIGIN), JSON/body parsing, cookie parsing and serves public/.
• src/db/index.js: Exports an async connectDB() function that connects to ${MONGODB_URI}/${DB_NAME} and logs the host.
• src/models/*: Mongoose schemas for User and Video including relations (owner, watchHistory) and utility methods (token generation, password checks).
• src/utils/*: Small helpers used across controllers to normalize error/response shapes and wrap async handlers.

Dependencies (from package.json)

Runtime

• express
• cors
• cookie-parser
• dotenv
• mongoose
• bcrypt
• jsonwebtoken
• mongoose-aggregate-paginate-v2

Development

• nodemon
• prettier

Environment Variables

Create an env file at the project root (the project loads ./env via dotenv). Example:

PORT=8000
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017
CORS_ORIGIN=http://localhost:3000
ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET=your-access-token-secret
REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET=your-refresh-token-secret
ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRY=15m
REFRESH_TOKEN_EXPIRY=7d

Required values:

• PORT - server listening port
• MONGODB_URI - base MongoDB URI (database name appended from src/constants.js)
• CORS_ORIGIN - allowed origin for CORS
• ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET / REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET - JWT secrets for token generation
• ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRY / REFRESH_TOKEN_EXPIRY - token expiry configuration

Scripts

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run in development mode (uses nodemon and loads ./env):

npm run dev

How to extend

• Add controllers in src/controllers/ and wire routes in a routes file (e.g., src/routes/)
• Add middleware in src/middleware/ and register with app.use() in src/app.js
• Add model methods or indexes inside src/models/ and import them in controllers

Notes & tips

• The project uses ES modules (type: "module" in package.json).
• Static files are served from public/.
• The database name is defined in src/constants.js as firstdb.

If you'd like, I can also generate a CONTRIBUTING.md and add examples for common routes (auth, upload, list videos).