🌌 Solar System Queries

A full‑stack Q&A app for all things planetary. Users can register, log in, ask questions, and post answers about planets in our solar system. Built with a modern React + Vite frontend and an Express + PostgreSQL backend.

✨ Features

• 🔐 User authentication with sessions
• 📝 Post questions and 💬 add answers
• 🗑️ Delete questions and answers (with cascading delete)
• 🪐 Category browsing by planet
• ⚡ Fast React + Vite frontend
• 🕙 View the most recent questions and answers first
• 🗄️ PostgreSQL persistence
• 🛡️ CORS configured for production deployments

🧱 Tech Stack

• Frontend: React 19, Vite 7, Axios, CSS Modules
• Backend: Node.js, Express 5, express-session, bcryptjs, cors, validator
• Database: PostgreSQL (pg)
• Config: dotenv
• Optional Session Store: Redis (via connect-redis)

📁 Project Structure

• backend/ssqueries_be: Express backend server, routes, controllers, and database configuration.
• frontend/ssqueries_fe: React/Vite frontend source code and configuration.

🚀 Getting Started (Local)

Prereqs:

• Node.js 18+ (recommended: 20+)
• PostgreSQL running locally or via a cloud instance
• (Optional) Redis server for session storage

1. Clone and install

• git clone <your-repo-url>
• cd backend/ssqueries_be && npm install
• cd ../../frontend/ssqueries_fe && npm install

2. Configure environment variables

Use the provided .env.example files as templates for your .env configuration.

Backend (backend/ssqueries_be/.env):

• PORT=8000
• NODE_ENV=development
• DB_HOST=localhost
• DB_PORT=5432
• DB_USER=your_user
• DB_PASSWORD=your_password
• DB_NAME=your_db
• SESSION_SECRET=a_very_long_random_string
• REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379

Frontend (frontend/ssqueries_fe/.env):

• VITE_BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:8000
• NODE_ENV=development

3. Start services

Backend:

• cd backend/ssqueries_be
• npm start

Frontend:

• cd frontend/ssqueries_fe
• npm run dev
• Open the printed local URL (typically http://localhost:5173)

🗄️ Database Schema (Minimal)

• users table: (id, username, password)
• questions table: (id, user-id, content, created_at, planet)
• answers table: (id, user-id, content, created_at, question-id)