manojuio/studycircle

1. Overall shape

StudyCircle is a two-tier monorepo: a Node.js/Express backend that exposes a REST API, and a React/Vite frontend that consumes it. The backend owns authentication, business rules, and persistence; the frontend focuses on route-based screens and API integration.

2. Backend runtime and entrypoints

The backend starts from backend/src/server.js, with app.js likely assembling middleware and routes. Configuration is split into config/env.js and config/db.js, which indicates environment-driven settings and a dedicated MongoDB connection layer.

3. Backend layering

The server is organized in a classic MVC-plus-service layout:

- routes/ define HTTP endpoints

- middlewares/ handle cross-cutting concerns

- controllers/ translate requests into service calls

- services/ implement domain logic

- models/ define MongoDB/Mongoose schemas

- utils/ provide shared response, error, and logging helpers

This separation is the main backend architectural boundary.

4. Domain modules

The core business domains are split by feature: auth, group, resource, question, and answer. A separate User model plus member.model.js suggests membership and role handling are modeled explicitly rather than inferred from groups alone.

5. Authentication and authorization

auth.controller.js, auth.service.js, and auth.middleware.js show a token-based security layer, consistent with the README’s JWT setup. Authorization is enforced at the API boundary, likely based on user identity and role checks such as student, teacher, and admin.

6. Group-centric collaboration model

Groups are the main collaboration container. The presence of group.model.js, member.model.js, and dedicated group routes/services implies that resources, questions, answers, and membership are all scoped to a group context. The README’s join-code and admin/teacher management features fit this boundary.

7. Q&A workflow

Questions and answers are split into separate modules: users post questions through the question service, and teachers post verified answers through the answer service. This indicates a controlled workflow where question creation and answer creation are not handled by the same API path or same actor role.

8. Shared resource flow

resource.controller.js and resource.service.js manage link-based study materials shared within a group. Resources are likely persisted as group-linked records in MongoDB and filtered by membership before being returned to clients.

9. Request validation and error handling

validate.middleware.js suggests schema or payload validation occurs before controller logic. error.middleware.js, together with ApiError.js and ApiResponse.js, provides a standardized API contract for failures and successes, which keeps the frontend integration predictable.

10. Frontend structure

The frontend is a Vite React app with main.jsx as the bootstrap and App.jsx as the top-level router/layout shell. Pages are split into Login, Register, Dashboard, Group, and QuestionDetail, which matches the backend’s auth and group-centric domain model.

11. Frontend API boundary

The src/api/ folder contains one client module per backend domain: auth.js, groups.js, groupDetail.js, resources.js, questions.js, answers.js, and user.js. This indicates the UI does not talk directly to the server ad hoc; instead, it uses a thin API layer over a shared Axios client in axios.js.

12. Data flow end to end

A typical request path is: user action in a page → frontend API module → Axios → Express route → auth/validation middleware → controller → service → Mongoose model → MongoDB → formatted response back to the UI. This is the main architectural flow to show in a diagram.

13. Access control boundaries

Role-based behavior spans both layers: the backend enforces it on protected routes, while the frontend likely renders different UI paths and actions depending on whether the user is a student, teacher, or admin. Teacher-only answers and admin-only member management are important policy boundaries.

14. Operational dependencies

The only hard external infrastructure visible from the repo is MongoDB. Node.js/Express powers the API, Mongoose maps domain objects to the database, and Vite/React powers the client build and local dev server. No separate queue, cache, or real-time service is present in the current architecture.

15. What to diagram

If you are drawing the system, the most important boxes are: React UI, Axios API client, Express API, middleware layer, feature services, Mongoose models, and MongoDB. Around those, show the auth boundary, the group-scoped collaboration model, and the distinct question/answer flow controlled by roles.