Conduit Backend (RealWorld)

TypeScript + Express + Prisma/PostgreSQL implementation of the RealWorld Conduit API.

Layered Architecture

Requests flow strictly inward through three layers per feature:

routes  →  services  →  repositories  →  Prisma/PostgreSQL
  • routes — thin HTTP adapters: validate input (Zod), delegate to a service, serialize the response. Route files never call prisma. directly.
  • services — business logic and orchestration. Depend on repositories.
  • repositories — the only layer that touches Prisma/the database.

Features live under src/features/<feature>/ and each owns its *.repository.ts, *.service.ts, *.routes.ts, and *.validation.ts.

Cross-cutting helpers live in src/utils/ (password hashing, JWT, slug, pagination, errors) and src/middleware/ (auth, error handler).

Setup 

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

Endpoints

Authentication

  • 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 (filters: tag, author, favorited; pagination)
  • 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 follow the RealWorld envelope:

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

Validation failures return 422, authentication failures 401, authorization failures 403, and missing resources 404.

Testing 

npm test            # run the full suite
npm run test:coverage

Unit tests cover password hashing, token signing, slug generation, pagination math, and error formatting. Integration tests exercise every endpoint via Supertest against a real test database.