PricePulse — Price Tracking & Notification Platform

PricePulse is a modern, premium web application built to monitor product prices across major e-commerce websites (Amazon India, Myntra, Meesho, Nykaa, Purplle) and automatically alert users when prices fall below their targets.

This project is optimized for performance, security, and high reliability in production environments.

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Technical Architecture & Features

• Java 21 Virtual Threads: Web scraping tasks are executed in parallel using Spring-integrated lightweight virtual threads, scaling effortlessly without blocking database pools.
• Transactional Separation: The price monitoring scheduler runs queries asynchronously; each product update runs in its own isolated transaction, preventing transaction leaks.
• REST Validation & Sanitized Handlers: Every API request is checked against strict validation constraints. Generic internal exceptions (HTTP 500) are sanitized to prevent security leaks.
• OpenAPI Swagger Docs: Interactive API documentation is available out of the box.
• Stand-alone Dockerization: The backend and frontend are dockerized and configured for multi-stage production deployment, leveraging Next.js standalone optimization.

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Technology Stack

• Backend: Spring Boot 3.4, Java 21 (Virtual Threads), Spring Security, Spring Mail, Hibernate, JSoup, PostgreSQL
• Frontend: Next.js 16 (App Router, Standalone mode), React, TypeScript, TailwindCSS, Recharts, Framer Motion
• Infrastructure: Docker, Docker Compose

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Detailed Guides

For installation, execution, and deployment, please refer to the following documentation:

• Local Installation Guide: Local installation, prerequisites, environment setup, local execution, and verification.
• Production Deployment Guide: Production configurations, security constraints, Docker Compose setups, and service scaling.

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Quick Start (Docker Compose)

To quickly build and run the entire application cluster (PostgreSQL, Backend API, Frontend client) locally:

1. Copy the environment variables template:

   cp .env.example .env

2. Build and launch the stack:

   docker compose up -d --build

3. Access the services:
   • Web Interface: http://localhost:3000
   • Backend Swagger UI: http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui.html
   • Backend OpenAPI Docs: http://localhost:8080/v3/api-docs

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Environment Configuration

Configurations are configured using standard environment variables:

Variable	Description	Default
POSTGRES_DB	PostgreSQL database name	pricepulse
POSTGRES_USER	PostgreSQL superuser username	postgres
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	PostgreSQL database password	postgres
DB_DDL_AUTO	Hibernate schema creation strategy	validate
CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	Permitted origins (comma separated)	http://localhost:3000
JWT_SECRET	Secret key used for signing JWT tokens	(Default secret)
APP_SCHEDULER_CRON	Schedule interval expression for price checks	0 0 * * * *
SMTP_HOST	SMTP server address for email dispatch	(Disabled)
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL	Base URL of the backend API	http://localhost:8080/api/v1