Loan Discovery Web Application

Loan Discovery is a full-stack loan discovery, comparison, and financial planning platform. It combines a React/Vite frontend with a Spring Boot API and MySQL persistence to help users compare loans, estimate eligibility and EMI, save profiles, and review curated banking data.

Overview

The application is organized as a small monorepo:

• loan/ contains the React frontend.
• backend/ contains the Spring Boot API and persistence layer.
• tools/ contains project utilities and analysis scripts.
• PROJECT_DEEP_ANALYSIS.txt contains a deeper technical snapshot of the repository.

The product currently focuses on four areas:

1. A premium landing experience that introduces the app and drives sign up.
2. Authenticated loan tools such as eligibility, EMI, comparison, recommendations, and IFSC lookup.
3. Persistent user data for profiles and saved comparisons.
4. Admin visibility with analytics and operational status panels.

Key Features

• JWT-based authentication with register and login flows.
• User profile save/load APIs for personal and loan details.
• Saved comparison management with create, list, and delete operations.
• EMI and affordability tools for loan planning.
• Bank, branch, and IFSC lookup utilities.
• Admin analytics for usage and platform insights.
• Premium, responsive UI with reusable component primitives.

Tech Stack

Frontend

• React 19
• Vite
• React Router
• Tailwind CSS
• Framer Motion
• Lucide icons
• Recharts
• Three.js

Backend

• Spring Boot 3.2.5
• Java 21
• Spring Web
• Spring Security
• Spring Data JPA
• Validation
• JWT
• MySQL Connector

Tooling

• Maven wrapper for backend builds
• PowerShell on Windows
• ESLint for frontend linting
• Vite production builds

Repository Structure

Loan-Discovery-Web-Application/
├─ backend/              Spring Boot API, entities, services, repositories, config
├─ loan/                 React frontend, UI components, pages, assets, utilities
├─ tools/                Support scripts and analysis helpers
└─ PROJECT_DEEP_ANALYSIS.txt  Deep project inventory and architecture notes

Frontend Application

The frontend lives in loan/ and is built as a premium dashboard-style web app.

Production frontend: https://loan-discovery-app.vercel.app/

Main Routes

• / - marketing and landing page
• /login - authentication screen
• /signup - registration screen
• /dashboard - protected app workspace

Frontend Capabilities

• Animated landing hero and interactive rates sections.
• Shared UI primitives for cards, buttons, inputs, alerts, tables, and forms.
• Theme-aware layouts with reusable page containers and premium panels.
• Protected dashboard tabs for profile, loan profile, EMI, eligibility, comparisons, recommendations, IFSC lookup, and admin analytics.
• Browser-based session persistence for auth tokens and profile state.

Backend Application

The backend lives in backend/ and exposes the APIs consumed by the frontend.

Production backend: https://loan-discovery-app.onrender.com

Backend Capabilities

• User registration and login with JWT issuance.
• BCrypt password hashing.
• Personal and loan profile persistence.
• Saved comparison storage.
• Admin statistics endpoint.
• Bank, branch, and IFSC lookup APIs.
• Global market hotspot endpoint.

Backend Notes

• The backend is configured for MySQL only.
• There is no H2 fallback in the intended runtime setup.
• Database credentials and JWT settings are provided through environment variables.

API Surface

Authentication

• POST /api/auth/register
• POST /api/auth/login

Profile

• GET /api/profile/me
• PUT /api/profile/personal
• PUT /api/profile/loan

Comparisons

• GET /api/comparisons
• POST /api/comparisons
• DELETE /api/comparisons/{id}

Admin

• GET /api/admin/stats

Bank and IFSC

• GET /api/ifsc/{code}
• GET /api/banks/search?q=...
• GET /api/banks/by-city?city=...
• GET /api/banks/names

Market Data

• GET /api/global-market/hotspots

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ for the frontend
• Java 21 for the backend
• MySQL 8+ accessible from the backend
• A shell capable of running PowerShell commands on Windows

Environment Variables

Tracked templates are included at backend/.env.example and loan/.env.example.

For local development, private .env files are also supported at backend/.env and loan/.env. These files are git-ignored and should contain your real secrets and local URLs.

Backend

Variable	Required	Description	Example
SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL	Yes	MySQL JDBC connection string	jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/loan_discovery?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC
SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME	Yes	MySQL username	root
SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD	Yes	MySQL password	your-password
JWT_SECRET	Yes	Secret used to sign JWTs	replace-with-a-long-random-secret
JWT_EXPIRATION_MS	No	Token lifetime in milliseconds	86400000
ADMIN_EMAIL	No	Email used to identify admin access	hardik.bhalekar10@gmail.com

Legacy DB_URL, DB_USERNAME, and DB_PASSWORD are still accepted for local backward compatibility.

Frontend

Variable	Required	Description	Example
VITE_API_BASE_URL	No	Backend API base URL	http://localhost:8080/api
VITE_ADMIN_EMAIL	No	Email used to reveal admin UI	hardik.bhalekar10@gmail.com

For production on Vercel, set VITE_API_BASE_URL to https://loan-discovery-app.onrender.com/api.

Local Development

1. Start the backend

Open a PowerShell terminal in backend/. You can either fill in backend/.env or set the variables manually in the terminal.

$env:SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/loan_discovery?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC"
$env:SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME="root"
$env:SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD="your-mysql-password"
$env:JWT_SECRET="replace-with-a-long-random-secret"
$env:ADMIN_EMAIL="hardik.bhalekar10@gmail.com"
Set-Location 'C:\Users\ASUS\Documents\Backend\Loan-Discovery-Web-Application\backend'
.\mvnw.cmd spring-boot:run

If port 8080 is already in use, run the backend on another port in that same terminal:

$env:PORT="8081"
.\mvnw.cmd spring-boot:run

To verify the backend compiles without running it:

Set-Location 'C:\Users\ASUS\Documents\Backend\Loan-Discovery-Web-Application\backend'
.\mvnw.cmd -q -DskipTests compile

2. Start the frontend

Open a separate terminal in loan/. Fill in loan/.env if you want to override the default local API URL or admin email, then run:

npm install
npm run dev

For a production build check:

npm run build

Render Deployment

The backend can be deployed to Render as a Java web service.

What Render Needs

• A web service created from this repository.
• A reachable MySQL database. Render does not provide MySQL natively, so use an external MySQL host.
• The backend environment variables listed above.

Render Blueprint

This repository includes render.yaml for the backend service.

Render Environment Variables

Set these in the Render service:

• SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL
• SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME
• SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD
• JWT_SECRET
• JWT_EXPIRATION_MS if you want a custom token lifetime
• ADMIN_EMAIL
• APP_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS with your frontend URL, for example https://your-frontend.onrender.com

Render does not load the repository .env files automatically. Copy the real values from your private local .env files into the Render dashboard or blueprint environment settings.

Build And Start Commands

The Render blueprint uses:

• Build: chmod +x mvnw && ./mvnw clean package -DskipTests
• Start: java -jar target/*.jar

Important Note

The app now listens on Render’s PORT automatically, so no extra port override is needed.

Current production backend URL: https://loan-discovery-app.onrender.com

Vercel Deployment

The frontend can be deployed to Vercel with the project root set to loan/.

What Vercel Needs

• Root directory set to loan
• VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://loan-discovery-app.onrender.com/api
• VITE_ADMIN_EMAIL if you want to override the default admin email

SPA Routing

This repository includes loan/vercel.json so React Router routes such as /login, /signup, and /dashboard rewrite to index.html instead of returning a Vercel 404: NOT_FOUND page.

Current Production Frontend

https://loan-discovery-app.vercel.app/

Verification Status

The following checks have been validated locally during development:

• Backend compile using the Maven wrapper.
• Frontend production build using Vite.

Development Notes

• Keep SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL, SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME, and SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD aligned with your local MySQL instance.
• Keep VITE_API_BASE_URL pointed at the backend when running the frontend locally.
• The dashboard is protected in the UI and redirects to login when the session is missing.
• Auth tokens and user data are stored in browser storage.
• If the admin tab does not appear, confirm the signed-in email matches the admin email configured in the frontend.

Roadmap

The current implementation roadmap for the app is:

1. JWT authentication.
2. Frontend JWT integration.
3. Profile save/load APIs.
4. Saved comparisons APIs and UI.
5. Admin analytics API and UI.
6. Production hardening.

Troubleshooting

• If the backend fails to start with a MySQL access denied error, confirm the username and password in SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME and SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD.
• If Render fails with UnknownHostException, re-check the hostname inside SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL.
• If startup fails with Port 8080 was already in use, stop the existing Java process on 8080 or run with PORT=8081.
• If the frontend cannot reach the API, confirm VITE_API_BASE_URL points to the running backend.
• If Vercel shows 404: NOT_FOUND on /login, /signup, or /dashboard, confirm loan/vercel.json is deployed and the Vercel project root is loan.
• If protected pages bounce back to login, clear browser storage and sign in again.
• If the admin experience is missing, verify the configured admin email in both backend and frontend environments.

Further Documentation

• loan/README.md for frontend-specific notes.
• backend/README.md for backend-specific setup.
• PROJECT_DEEP_ANALYSIS.txt for the deep project inventory and architecture snapshot.