Conduit Backend

A RealWorld (Conduit) backend built with TypeScript + Express + Prisma/PostgreSQL.

Layered Architecture

Requests flow strictly inward; dependencies point inward only:

routes (driving adapters)  →  services (business logic)  →  repositories (driven adapters)  →  Prisma/PostgreSQL
  • Routes are thin: input validation (Zod) + delegation. They never touch prisma.*.
  • Services own business logic and orchestration; they depend on repository classes.
  • Repositories are the only place Prisma models are accessed.
  • Composition root (src/app.ts) wires repositories → services → routers via constructor injection.

Feature modules live under src/modules/<feature>/ and each own their repository, service, schemas and routes.

Setup 

npm install
cp .env.example .env      # fill in DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, PORT
npm run prisma:generate
npm run prisma:migrate
npm run dev

Environment Variables

Variable Description
DATABASE_URL PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET Secret used to sign JWTs (required)
PORT HTTP port (default 3000)

Endpoints

Auth / User

  • POST /api/users — register
  • POST /api/users/login — login
  • GET /api/user — current user (auth)
  • PUT /api/user — update user (auth)

Profiles

  • GET /api/profiles/:username
  • POST /api/profiles/:username/follow (auth)
  • DELETE /api/profiles/:username/follow (auth)

Articles

  • GET /api/articles — list (filters: tag, author, favorited; pagination limit/offset)
  • GET /api/articles/feed (auth)
  • GET /api/articles/:slug
  • POST /api/articles (auth)
  • PUT /api/articles/:slug (auth, author only)
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug (auth, author only)
  • POST /api/articles/:slug/favorite (auth)
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug/favorite (auth)

Comments

  • GET /api/articles/:slug/comments
  • POST /api/articles/:slug/comments (auth)
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug/comments/:id (auth, author only)

Tags

  • GET /api/tags

Error Format

All errors conform to the RealWorld envelope:

{ "errors": { "body": ["message"] } }

Validation failures return HTTP 422; auth failures 401; forbidden 403; missing 404.

Testing 

npm test              # run the suite
npm run test:coverage # run with coverage (threshold: 80% lines)

Unit tests cover password hashing, JWT sign/verify, slug generation, pagination math and error formatting. Integration tests exercise every endpoint at the HTTP boundary via Supertest against a real PostgreSQL test database.