Netlink — Social Platform

Architecture Overview

Netlink uses a modular, service‑oriented architecture designed for clarity, scalability, and maintainability. The frontend is a Vue 3 + TypeScript SPA with component‑driven UI, Pinia state, composables, and SCSS modules. The backend is a Node.js + Express REST API with modular controllers, services, and middleware. Data is persisted in PostgreSQL via Prisma ORM, using a strong relational schema and type‑safe queries.

Key architectural principles include separation of concerns (UI, API, DB), composable logic (Vue composables + backend services), strict typing (TypeScript + Prisma), a scalable moderation layer (block, mute, report), and a responsive design system that adapts from mobile to desktop.

Backend Logic

The backend is built around modular controllers, service functions, and middleware. Core features include authentication (JWT), posts (CRUD, likes, comments, reposts), messaging (chats, messages, participants), notifications (follows, likes, comments, messages), moderation (block, mute, report), and user profiles (avatar, bio, settings).

Moderation follows an Instagram‑style enforcement model: when a user blocks another, the system removes follows, likes, comments, favorites, reposts, notifications, deletes chats and messages between them, prevents future interactions, and hides each user from the other's feed and search. A Block record is stored to enforce these rules consistently. Middleware such as authMiddleware (JWT validation), blockCheckMiddleware (blocked interaction checks), optional rateLimitMiddleware, and a unified errorHandler keep the API secure and predictable.

Deployment Pipeline

Netlink uses a simple, reliable deployment setup optimized for personal projects and portfolios. The frontend is built with Vite and deployed to Netlify, with auto‑deploys on push to main. The backend (Node.js + Express) is hosted on Railway, with environment variables stored securely. PostgreSQL runs on a managed Railway cloud instance, and Prisma migrations are applied automatically on deploy.

The pipeline flow is: push to GitHub → optional GitHub Actions → backend deploys to Railway → frontend deploys to Netlify → Prisma migrations run → the app goes live.