GiecChallenge

A full‑stack demo application consisting of an ASP.NET Core backend and a React frontend.
The project is container‑based and can be run locally with Docker‑Compose or built and deployed through GitLab CI.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Prerequisites
• Environment Variables
• Running Locally
• Building & Testing
• Deploying with GitLab CI
• Project Structure
• License

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Overview

• Backend: ASP.NET Core 10.0 API (backend/GiecChallenge).
  Handles authentication, JWT generation, and CRUD operations for products, purchases, etc.
• Frontend: React (create‑react‑app) (frontend).
  Consumes the API and provides a UI for managing data.
• Infrastructure: Docker containers for backend, frontend, and PostgreSQL database, orchestrated with docker‑compose.yml.

All secrets (DB credentials, JWT secret, passwords, etc.) are externalised to environment variables and never committed to source control.

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Prerequisites

• Docker Engine (>= 20.10) with Docker‑Compose support
• Git (to clone the repository)
• (Optional) GitLab Runner with Docker‑in‑Docker for CI pipelines
• Node 14+ (for local frontend development)
• .NET 10 SDK (for local backend development)

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Environment Variables

Create a .env file at the repository root (or supply variables to your CI environment). Example:

# Database
POSTGRES_USER=your_user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your_password

# Connection string (used by the backend)
ConnectionStrings__PostgreSQL=Host=giecchallenge_db;Port=14432;Database=GiecChallenge;User ID=${POSTGRES_USER};Password=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD};Pooling=true

# JWT configuration
JWT__ValidAudience=https://giecchallenge-backend.maximeboulay.com
JWT__ValidIssuer=https://giecchallenge-backend.maximeboulay.com
JWT__Secret=super_secret_jwt_key

# UI configuration
REACT_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:17020   # points to the backend container

# Misc
OriginAllowed=http://localhost:3000
PasswordHash=some_hash_value

The appsettings.Development.json and appsettings.Docker.json files reference these variables using the ${VARIABLE_NAME} syntax.

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Running Locally

1. Start the stack

docker compose up --build

• Backend API: http://localhost:17020 (HTTP) & https://localhost:17021 (HTTPS)
• Frontend UI: http://localhost:13000
• PostgreSQL: localhost:14432

2. Access the UI in a browser at http://localhost:13000.

3. Stop the stack

docker compose down

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Building & Testing

Backend

dotnet restore backend/GiecChallenge/GiecChallenge.csproj
dotnet build backend/GiecChallenge/GiecChallenge.csproj -c Release
dotnet test backend/GiecChallenge.test/GiecChallenge.test.csproj

Frontend

cd frontend
npm ci
npm run build   # produces ./frontend/build

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Deploying with GitLab CI

The repository contains a .gitlab-ci.yml defining the following stages:

1. restore – restores NuGet packages and installs Node dependencies.
2. build – builds the .NET project and the React app.
3. test – runs backend unit tests.
4. docker_build – builds Docker images for both services and pushes them to the GitLab Container Registry.
5. deploy – placeholder stage for your production deployment (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, or a VM).

The CI pipeline expects the following CI/CD variables to be defined in GitLab:

• CI_REGISTRY_USER, CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD, CI_REGISTRY, CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE (provided automatically by GitLab).
• All custom variables from the .env file (e.g., POSTGRES_USER, POSTGRES_PASSWORD, JWT__Secret, etc.).

Push a branch, and GitLab will automatically run the pipeline. Merge to main to trigger the deploy stage placeholder.

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Project Structure

├── backend/
│   └── GiecChallenge/
│       ├── Dockerfile          # Backend container image
│       ├── appsettings.*.json  # Configuration files (environment‑variable placeholders)
│       ├── Controllers/ ...
│       └── *.csproj
├── frontend/
│   ├── Dockerfile              # Frontend container image
│   ├── package.json
│   └── src/ …
├── docker-compose.yml          # Local orchestration
├── .gitlab-ci.yml              # CI pipeline definition
├── .env                        # Example env file (do not commit secrets)
└── README.md                   # You are reading it now

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License

This project is provided for educational purposes. Feel free to adapt and extend it under the terms of the MIT License.

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Enjoy! If you encounter any issues, verify that all required environment variables are defined and that Docker is running with sufficient resources.