development

Development Documentation

Documentation for developers working on the Hiking Portal project.

📖 Documentation in this Section

Architecture

• backend-architecture.md - Backend structure, controllers, and recent additions
• frontend-architecture.md - Frontend components and structure

Development Guides

• refactoring-guide.md - Code refactoring history and guidelines
• email-configuration.md - Email service setup and troubleshooting
• quick-wins.md - Quick implementation wins and improvements
• profiles-analytics-plan.md - Profile and analytics implementation plan

🏗️ Project Architecture

Backend (Node.js + Express)

• Controllers: Business logic for hikes, users, payments, etc.
• Routes: API endpoints
• Middleware: Authentication, validation
• Database: PostgreSQL (Cloud SQL)

Frontend (React)

• Components: Reusable UI components
• Pages: Route-level components
• Services: API integration
• Contexts: Global state management

🔧 Development Workflow

1. Backend Changes: Edit controllers/routes → Test locally → Deploy
2. Frontend Changes: Edit components → Build → Deploy to Firebase
3. Database Changes: Create migration → Test → Deploy to production

📚 Key Technologies

• Backend: Node.js 18, Express, PostgreSQL, JWT
• Frontend: React 18, Bootstrap 5, React Router
• Infrastructure: Google Cloud Run, Firebase Hosting, Cloud SQL

🧪 Testing

# Backend syntax check
cd backend
node -c server.js
node -c controllers/*.js
node -c routes/*.js

# Frontend build
cd frontend
npm run build

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For deployment instructions, see ../deployment/README.md.