📌 Pinterest MVP

A scalable Pinterest-like application built using a modern microservices architecture. This project focuses on backend-first development with extensibility, performance, and clean system design in mind.

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🚀 Overview

This project is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of a Pinterest-like platform where users can:

• login & Create New Account
• Create and manage pins (images)
• Save pins
• Interact with content (basic features)
• add/remove like
• Create Board

The system is designed to evolve into a full-scale production-ready application.

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🧠 Architecture

The system follows a Microservices Architecture:

• API Gateway (GraphQL)
• Auth Service
• User Service
• Pin Service
• Board Service
• Like Service
• Saves Service

Each service is isolated and communicates via:

• RabbitMQ (internal communication)
• gRPC (internal communication)
• GraphQL (external API)
• Rest API (external API)

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⚙️ Tech Stack

Backend

• Node.js + NestJS
• GraphQL (Code-first approach)
• gRPC
• MongoDB (depending on service)
• Mongoose ORM
• hashicorp vault (managment secrets)
• Jest (Testing)

Infrastructure

• Docker
• Docker compose

Messaging & Communication (planned)

• RabbitMQ

Dev Tools

• TypeScript
• ts-proto (for gRPC types generation)

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📁 Project Structure

/apps
  /gateway
  /authe
  /user
  /pins
  /boards
  /saves
/libs
  /proto
  /shared
    /types
    /utils
    /constants
    /index.ts

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🔌 API Design

• GraphQL Gateway is the entry point for clients
• Each microservice exposes gRPC endpoints
• Shared .proto files are used for type-safe communication

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🛠️ Getting Started

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/your-username/pinterest-mvp.git
cd pinterest-mvp

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2. Install dependencies

npm install

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3. Generate gRPC Types

npm run proto:generate

Make sure all .proto files are correctly placed in /libs/shared/proto

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4. Run services

npm run start:dev

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⚠️ Common Issues

Proto path errors

If you see errors like:

File does not reside within any path specified using --proto_path

Make sure:

• You are passing correct --proto_path
• Paths are relative to project root
• No missing folders

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📈 Roadmap

• Image upload & storage (Cloudinary / S3)
• Authentication (JWT + Refresh Tokens)
• Comments & Likes
• Search (ElasticSearch)
• Recommendation system (AI-based)
• Real-time updates
• Frontend (Next.js)

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💡 Design Goals

• Scalability (horizontal scaling)
• Clean separation of concerns
• Type safety across services
• High performance communication (gRPC)

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🤝 Contributing

This is a personal learning project, but contributions, ideas, and feedback are welcome.

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📄 License

MIT License

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👨‍💻 Author

Ahmed Hassan Full Stack Developer | AI Enthusiast

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