VCompGuide Backend

This is the backend service for the VCompGuide project. It is built using the NestJS framework and utilizes a variety of powerful third-party APIs for AI, mapping, weather, and media storage.

🚀 Features & Tech Stack

This project is built with TypeScript and relies on several key technologies and integrations:

• Core Framework: NestJS (@nestjs/core, @nestjs/common).
• Database: MongoDB object modeling using Mongoose (@nestjs/mongoose, mongoose).
• Authentication & Security: Token-based authentication using Passport and JWT (@nestjs/jwt, passport-jwt), with password hashing via bcrypt.
• AI Integrations:
  • Google Gemini AI (@google/generative-ai).
  • HuggingFace Inference API (@huggingface/inference).
• Location Services: Google Maps API integration (@googlemaps/google-maps-services-js).
• Weather Services: OpenWeather API integration.
• Media Management: File uploads and cloud storage via Cloudinary (cloudinary, streamifier).
• API Documentation: OpenAPI/Swagger integration (@nestjs/swagger).

🛠️ Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed on your local machine:

• Node.js (Project is configured for standard Node.js environments)
• npm or Yarn package manager
• A running MongoDB instance

⚙️ Environment Variables

Before running the application, you must configure your environment variables.

1. Copy the provided .env.example file to a new file named .env.
2. Fill in the required values for the following keys:

CORE_DB_URI= # Your MongoDB connection string
JWT_SECRET= # Secret key for JWT signing
GEMINI_API_KEY= # Your Google Gemini API Key
GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY= # Your Google Maps API Key
HUGGINGFACE_TOKEN= # Your HuggingFace Access Token
OPENWEATHER_API_KEY= # Your OpenWeather API Key
CLOUDINARY_NAME= # Your Cloudinary cloud name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY= # Your Cloudinary API Key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET= # Your Cloudinary API Secret
LOCAL_AUTHENTICATION_KEY= # Key for local authentication strategies

📦 Installation

Install the project dependencies using npm:

npm install

🏃 Running the Application

The package.json includes standard NestJS scripts to run the server:

# Development mode
npm run start

# Watch mode (reloads on file changes)
npm run start:dev