A Simple CRUD Social Networking API

GoSocial is a lightweight, modular social networking backend built with Go, featuring:

• 🚀 RESTful API with Swagger documentation
• ⚙️ Chi router for clean, fast routing
• 🧠 Redis caching for performance
• 🗄️ PostgreSQL (via Docker) for reliable data persistence
• 📨 Email verification system
• 🧩 Graceful shutdown and structured logging
• ☁️ Deployable to Google App Engine (GAE)

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📚 Features

✅ User Management

• Register, login, activate accounts via email
• JWT-based authentication and authorization

✅ Post Management

• Create, update, and delete posts
• Support for tags and versioning

✅ Comments

• Add comments to posts
• Retrieve comments for a post

✅ Feeds

• View personalized feed:

  • Your own posts
  • Posts from users you follow

✅ Follow System

• Follow or unfollow other users
• Feed updates automatically reflect follow relationships

✅ Caching

• Frequently accessed posts and feeds cached in Redis

✅ Swagger API Docs

• Auto-generated via swaggo/swag
• Viewable in the browser at api/v1/swagger/

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🧱 Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	Go (v1.23+)
Web Framework	Chi Router
Database	PostgreSQL (via Docker)
Cache	Redis
Documentation	Swagger (swaggo/swag)
Logging	Uber Zap
Deployment	Google App Engine
CI/CD	GitHub Actions (optional)

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⚙️ Environment Setup

Before running the application, export the following environment variables:

export PORT=8080
export SOCIAL_NETWORK_DB_DSN=postgres://admin:admin123@localhost/socialnetwork?sslmode=disable
export DB_MAX_OPEN_CONNS=30
export DB_MAX_IDLE_CONNS=30
export DB_MAX_IDLE_TIME=15m

export EXTERNAL_URL=localhost:8080
export ENV=development

# smtp Config (replace SMTP credentials)
export [email protected]
export SMTP_PORT=2525
export SMTP_HOST=sandbox.smtp.mailtrap.io
export USERNAME=your_mailtrap_username
export PASSWORD=your_mailtrap_password

# jwt Config
export AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET=supersecretkey
export AUD=social
export ISS=social
export EXP=3

💡 Remember to replace the SMTP credentials and email with your own before running.

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🐘 Running PostgreSQL with Docker

If you don’t have PostgreSQL installed locally, you can spin it up easily with Docker:

docker run --name social-postgres \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=admin \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=admin123 \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=socialnetwork \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  -d postgres:16

Once it’s running, verify the connection:

psql postgres://admin:admin123@localhost:5432/socialnetwork

Then run your migrations (if applicable) or let your app auto-migrate on startup.

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🚀 Running Redis (Optional)

For caching (if Redis is not already running):

docker run --name social-redis -p 6379:6379 -d redis:7

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📘 API Documentation

Swagger docs are automatically generated from your Go annotations.

• View in browser: 👉 http://localhost:8080/api/v1/swagger/

To regenerate docs after changes:

make gen/docs

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☁️ Deployment (Google App Engine)

You can deploy this app to Google App Engine Standard or Flexible Environment.

Example app.yaml:

runtime: go123
env: standard
entrypoint: ./server
env_variables:
  PORT: 8080
  SOCIAL_NETWORK_DB_DSN: postgres://admin:admin123@/cloudsql/YOUR_INSTANCE_CONNECTION_NAME/socialnetwork
  AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET: supersecretkey
  ENV: production

Then deploy:

gcloud app deploy

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🧾 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License