GalacticView

A microservices platform for exploring the cosmos — NASA Open APIs, community blog posts, and an AI astronomy assistant — deployed on AWS + k3s.

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Browser                                                     │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
                           │ http://<EC2_IP>/
                           ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  k3s on EC2 (Traefik Ingress)                                │
│  ┌─────────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │ frontend-ui-ingress │  │ backend-api-ingress          │  │
│  │   /  → frontend     │  │   /auth  → auth-service    │  │
│  └─────────────────────┘  │   /blogs → blog-service    │  │
│                           │   /agent → agent-service   │  │
│                           └──────────────────────────────┘  │
└──────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
           │                      │
    ┌──────▼──────┐        ┌──────▼──────┐        ┌───────────┐
    │  frontend   │        │ auth-service│        │blog-service│
    │  (React)    │        │  (FastAPI)  │        │ (FastAPI) │
    └─────────────┘        └──────┬──────┘        └─────┬─────┘
                                  │                     │
                           ┌──────▼──────┐       ┌──────▼──────┐
                           │ RDS Postgres│       │ DynamoDB+S3 │
                           └─────────────┘       └─────────────┘

    ┌─────────────┐
    │agent-service│  ← Groq + Tavily (no own database)
    │  (FastAPI)  │
    └─────────────┘

Microservices (apps/)

Service	Directory	Port	Database	Responsibility
Frontend	apps/frontend	80	—	React SPA, NASA data UI, chat widget
Auth	apps/core-backend	8000	PostgreSQL	User registration, login, sessions (Firebase)
Blog	apps/blogpost-backend	8001	DynamoDB + S3	Blog posts and image uploads
Agent	apps/agent-backend	8002	—	AI chat (Groq, LangGraph, Tavily)

Each backend service has its own Dockerfile, Poetry dependencies, and .env.example.

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Quick start — local (Docker Compose)

The fastest way to run the full stack on your machine without AWS or Kubernetes.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose
• Copy .env.example → .env in each app directory (see below)
• Place Firebase service account JSON at secrets/firebase-service-account.json

Environment files

cp apps/core-backend/.env.example    apps/core-backend/.env
cp apps/blogpost-backend/.env.example apps/blogpost-backend/.env
cp apps/agent-backend/.env.example    apps/agent-backend/.env
cp apps/frontend/.env.example         apps/frontend/.env

Fill in API keys: NASA, Groq, Tavily (optional), Firebase.

Run

docker compose up --build

Open http://localhost:8080

Service	URL
Frontend	http://localhost:8080
Auth API	http://localhost:8000
Blog API	http://localhost:8001
Agent API	http://localhost:8002

Local databases: PostgreSQL (auth) and LocalStack (DynamoDB + S3 for blog) run inside Compose — no AWS account needed.

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Cloud deployment (reproducible)

Full cloud reproduction from this repository:

1. terraform/README.md — Provision AWS (VPC, EC2/k3s, RDS, DynamoDB, S3)
2. k8s/README.md — Build images, create secrets, deploy manifests

What you must provide locally (never in git)

Secret / credential	Where to set it
AWS credentials	aws configure or env vars
db_password	terraform/terraform.tfvars
PostgreSQL password	k8s/secrets.yaml (same as db_password)
AWS IAM keys (blog S3/DynamoDB)	k8s/secrets.yaml
Groq / Tavily API keys	k8s/secrets.yaml
Firebase service account	kubectl create secret + secrets/firebase-service-account.json
Docker Hub token	kubectl create secret docker-registry

Tracked reproducibility files

Path	Purpose
docker-compose.yml	Local full-stack
terraform/*.tf + terraform.tfvars.example	AWS infrastructure
k8s/*.yaml + k8s/secrets.example.yaml	Kubernetes workloads
apps/*/.env.example	Per-app local configuration templates

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Per-app documentation

• Frontend
• Agent service

Each backend app also has a .env.example in its directory for local configuration.

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CI

GitHub Actions workflows under .github/workflows/ run linting and tests per service on push.

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License

See apps/frontend/LICENSE, apps/core-backend/LICENSE, and apps/blogpost-backend/LICENSE.