Books Database

A full-stack web application for browsing a curated collection of books. Built with a React frontend and a Node.js/Express backend backed by PostgreSQL.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React, React Router
Backend	Node.js, Express
Database	PostgreSQL
Containerization	Docker, Docker Compose

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 20.0.0
• npm >= 10.0.0
• Docker (for containerized setup)

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Getting Started

Docker (Recommended)

The easiest way to run the full stack is with Docker Compose. This starts the React client, Express server, and a PostgreSQL database together.

Start all services:

npm run docker:start

App URLs:

• Client: http://localhost:3000
• Server: http://localhost:5001
• PostgreSQL: localhost:5432 — user: books, password: books, db: booksdb

Stop services:

npm run docker:stop

Tear down (including volumes):

npm run docker:down

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Local Development

Run the server and client independently without Docker.

Server

cd server
npm install
npm test
npm start

The server runs on http://localhost:5000.

Client

cd client
npm install
npm test
npm start

The client runs on http://localhost:3000.

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Docker Dev Mode (Hot Reload)

Run the full stack with file watching enabled so code changes apply automatically — no container rebuilds needed.

npm run docker:dev:start

This enables:

• Client — React fast refresh via react-scripts
• Server — automatic restart via nodemon

Stop dev mode:

npm run docker:dev:down

Stream logs:

npm run docker:logs

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Database Seeding

On startup, the server automatically creates the books table and seeds it from server/db/seeds/books.json if the table is empty.

To disable auto-seeding, set the environment variable:

BOOKS_AUTO_SEED=false

To seed manually:

cd server
npm run db:seed

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API

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/books/:id	Fetch a book by ID