📚 PAGE_PAL: Book Review and Recommendation System

A Node.js backend API demonstrating advanced Prisma ORM patterns with PostgreSQL database integration.

PagePal is a book review and recommendation API that showcases advanced database modeling and ORM techniques. This project serves as a reference implementation for how to effectively use Prisma ORM with PostgreSQL in a Node.js environment.

✨ Features

User Management

• 🔐 Authentication: Secure JWT-based user sessions
• 👑 Role-Based Access Control: Tiered permissions with USER, AUTHOR, and ADMIN roles
• 📝 Audit Logging: Comprehensive activity tracking for all user actions

Book Management

• 📖 Book Catalog: Complete CRUD operations for books including metadata (title, description, genre, author, published year, ISBN)
• 🏷️ Classification: Multi-faceted organization with genres and tags
• ⭐ Ratings & Reviews: Users can rate books (1-5 stars) and write detailed reviews

Author Platform

• ✍️ Author Application Process: Users can apply to become recognized authors
• 👨‍💼 Admin Moderation: Application review and approval workflow

Community Features

• 📚 Collections: Create and manage personal book collections
• 🤝 Sharing: Collaborate on collections with other users
• 👥 Follow System: Stay updated on other users' reading activities
• ⚡ Rate Limiting & Pagination: Performance optimizations for large datasets

Recommendation Engine

Our non-AI recommendation algorithm analyzes:

• User ratings history
• Review sentiment
• Content similarity
• Genre preferences
• Reading patterns

This creates a personalized book discovery experience without the complexity of machine learning implementation.

Core Technical Features

Database Architecture

• Core Schema Design & Relations: Implements complex many-to-many, one-to-many, and self-referential relationships using Prisma's relation fields. Features composite unique constraints and proper indexing for performance optimization.

• CRUD Operations with Prisma Client: Leverages Prisma Client's type-safe API for all database interactions with full TypeScript integration.

• Soft Deletes: Implements non-destructive record removal by maintaining deletedAt timestamps rather than performing hard deletes, preserving data integrity and referential consistency.

• Enums & Indexed Fields: Uses Prisma's Enum support for type-safe role definitions and strategic database indexing for query performance.

• Pagination: Implements cursor-based pagination for efficient large dataset traversal with optimized query patterns.

• JSON Support for Flexibility: Utilizes PostgreSQL's native JSON field support for storing semi-structured data like user preferences and book metadata.

Security & Performance

• Audit Logging: Comprehensive activity tracking through Prisma middleware that captures all model operations with before/after states.

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Tiered permission system using Prisma Enums with middleware validation for protected endpoints.

• Rate Limiting: Implements request throttling to prevent API abuse and ensure system stability.

• Transaction Management: Ensures data consistency for multi-table operations using Prisma's transaction support.

API Architecture

• Authentication Flow: Secure JWT-based authentication with refresh token rotation.

• Request Validation: Type-safe request validation using Prisma's generated TypeScript types.

• Error Handling: Centralized error processing with appropriate HTTP status codes.

Performance Optimizations

• Strategic database indexing on frequently queried fields
• Efficient relation loading with Prisma's include patterns
• Query performance monitoring and optimization

🛠️ Technology Stack

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14+)
• PostgreSQL (v13+)
• npm or yarn

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd <repository-directory>

2. Install dependencies

   npm install

3. Configure environment Create a .env file with your database connection:

   DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/db_name"
   JWT_REFRESH_SECRET="your-refresh-secret-key"
   JWT_ACCESS_SECRET="your-access-secret-key"
   

4. Set up the database

   npx prisma migrate dev

5. Seed initial data

   npx prisma db seed

6. Start the development server

   npm run dev

7. Access the application Open your browser to http://localhost:5000

📈 Future Roadmap

• 🔍 Advanced Search: Full-text search capabilities across all book content
• 🤖 ML-powered Recommendations: Integration of machine learning models for more sophisticated book suggestions
• 📊 Analytics Dashboard: Insights into reading trends and user engagement
• 🌐 Social Features: Enhanced community interactions and book discussions
• 📱 Mobile Applications: Native iOS and Android clients

License

This project is licensed under the ISC License

👥 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js with Express
• Language: TypeScript for type safety
• Database: PostgreSQL for relational data storage
• ORM: Prisma for database interactions
• Authentication: JWT with refresh token rotation
• Security: Helmet, CORS, and rate limiting
• Development: Concurrently for parallel process running