Happy Thoughts API

render link: https://happy-thoughts-api-o47r.onrender.com

This project is a RESTful API built with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB (via Mongoose) that allows users to create, view, manage, and "like" happy thoughts. It also includes user authentication features to secure content management actions.

🚀 Key Features

• User Management:
  • Signup: Register new users with email, first name, last name, and hashed passwords (using bcrypt).
  • Login: Authenticate users and receive an accessToken for protected requests.
• Happy Thoughts Management:
  • Create: Authenticated users can post happy thoughts.
  • Read: View all thoughts (supports filtering by minimum likes) or fetch a specific thought by ID.
  • Update: Authenticated users can edit their own thoughts.
  • Delete: Authenticated users can delete their own thoughts.
  • Like: Users can "like" (increment the heart count) any happy thought.
• Security:
  • Authentication middleware verifies user accessToken for sensitive operations (creating, updating, deleting).
  • Authorization checks ensure users can only modify thoughts they own.
  • Password hashing and email validation.

🛠 Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js
• Framework: Express.js
• Database: MongoDB
• ODM: Mongoose
• Security: bcrypt (password hashing), crypto (access token generation)
• Utilities: cors, dotenv (environment variables), express-list-endpoints

📡 API Endpoints

User Routes (/users)

Method	Endpoint	Description	Auth Required
POST	/signup	Register a new user	No
POST	/login	Authenticate user	No
GET	/:id	Get user profile	No

Happy Thoughts Routes (/happy-thoughts)

Method	Endpoint	Description	Auth Required
GET	/	List thoughts (query: minLikes)	No
POST	/	Create a new thought	Yes
GET	/:id	Get a specific thought	No
PATCH	/:id	Update a thought	Yes
DELETE	/:id	Delete a thought	Yes
PATCH	/:id/like	Like a thought	No

⚙️ Setup & Configuration

1. Clone the repository.
2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Environment Variables: Create a .env file in the root directory and define the following:

   MONGO_URL=your_mongodb_connection_string
   

4. Run the server:

   npm run dev