Ecommerce

A full stack ecommerce application with a React frontend, an Express API, and a PostgreSQL database managed through Prisma.

Stack

• Frontend: React 18, Vite, React Router, Axios, Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Node.js, Express, TypeScript, Prisma
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Authentication: JSON Web Tokens

Prerequisites

Install these tools before starting:

• Git
• Node.js 20 or newer
• npm
• PostgreSQL

Verify the installations:

git --version
node --version
npm --version
psql --version

Quick start

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Dev22603/ecommerce.git
cd ecommerce

2. Create the PostgreSQL database

Using the PostgreSQL command line:

createdb ecommerce

If createdb is unavailable, open psql or pgAdmin and create a database named ecommerce.

3. Set up the backend

cd Backend
npm install

Create a local environment file.

macOS or Linux:

cp .env.example .env

Windows PowerShell:

Copy-Item .env.example .env

Open Backend/.env and update the database credentials and JWT secret:

PORT=5000
NODE_ENV=development
LOG_LEVEL=INFO
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:your-password@localhost:5432/ecommerce
JWT_SECRET=replace-with-a-long-random-secret
API_URL=http://localhost:5000/api
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:5173

Apply the database migration and load sample categories and products (seed does not create users):

npm run db:generate
npm run db:migrate:prod
npm run db:seed

Start the API:

npm run dev

The API runs at http://localhost:5000. Check it at http://localhost:5000/health.

4. Set up the frontend

Open a second terminal from the repository root:

cd Frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173, then create an account with the signup page. The seed data only includes categories and products.

Common commands

Run backend commands from Backend:

npm run dev              # Start the API with file watching
npm run build            # Compile TypeScript
npm start                # Run the compiled API
npm run db:generate      # Regenerate the Prisma client
npm run db:migrate       # Create and apply a development migration
npm run db:migrate:prod  # Apply existing migrations
npm run db:seed          # Insert sample categories and products
npm run db:studio        # Open Prisma Studio

Run frontend commands from Frontend:

npm run dev      # Start the Vite development server
npm run build    # Create a production build
npm run lint     # Run ESLint
npm run preview  # Preview the production build

Project structure

ecommerce/
|-- Backend/
|   |-- prisma/       Database schema, migrations, and seed data
|   `-- src/          Express API, services, repositories, and middleware
|-- Frontend/
|   |-- router/       Application routing
|   `-- src/          React components, pages, context, and API services
`-- README.md

Troubleshooting

Database connection fails

Confirm PostgreSQL is running and that DATABASE_URL in Backend/.env contains the correct username, password, host, port, and database name.

The frontend cannot reach the API

Confirm the backend is running on port 5000 and FRONTEND_URL is set to http://localhost:5173.

Prisma reports an outdated client

Run:

cd Backend
npm run db:generate

Port already in use

Stop the process using port 5000 or 5173. If you change the backend port, update the frontend API URLs as well.