This is the backend server for the UniForum project developed using the MERN stack.

To view the deployment of the server from this repository, visit: https://uni-forum.herokuapp.com/

To view the UniForum frontend repository, visit: SE701-T5/Frontend

The following are required to run the application

• MongoDB
• Heroku

The following is required to be installed for running the application locally

• Node.js

To run this application, environment variables are required to be set as GitHub repository Action Secrets, and as system variables when run locally.

The following environment variable is required for running the application

PORT = <port>

The following environment variables are required for connecting the application to a MongoDB account

DATABASE_USER = <database-username>
DATABASE_PW = <database-password>
DATABASE_NAME = <application-database-name>
DATABASE_TEST_NAME = <test-database-name>

It is recommended to use a different test-database-name for repository forks and local testing

The following environment variables are required for deploying the application using a Heroku account

HEROKU_EMAIL = <heroku-email>
HEROKU_API_KEY = <heroku-api-key>
HEROKU_APP_NAME = <heroku-application-name>

The following instruction can be used to install npm dependencies

npm install

The following instruction can be used to test the application

npm test

The following instruction can be used to run the application

npm start

The application should be running locally at http://localhost:<port>

The following instruction can be used to run the application with automatic restarts for local changes

npm dev

The following instructions can be used to locally deploy the application to Heroku

heroku create <application-name>
git push heroku main
heroku open

To contribute to this project, refer to the instructions laid out in the Contributing Guidelines and Code of Conduct

• Getting Started with Node.js
• Getting Started with MongoDB
• Getting Started on Heroku with Node.js