🌍 TerraBrewer

A high-performance, secure country & capital weather explorer featuring a Vercel-ready Express.js serverless backend and a visually stunning Vanilla JS + CSS frontend. Explore real-time weather, disaster alerts, and comprehensive country metrics through a premium, glassmorphic interface.

✨ Key Features

• ⚡ Serverless Backend — Lightweight, high-performance Vercel serverless functions proxy requests, securing API keys and handling CORS seamlessly.
• 🎨 Glorious UI — Beautifully crafted, responsive interface featuring intense glassmorphism, fluid micro-animations, animated SVGs, and a sleek Light/Dark mode toggle.
• ⛈️ Real-time Weather — Live updates, 5-day forecasts, and precise conditions fetched via the OpenWeatherMap API.
• 🚨 Disaster Intelligence — Integrated real-time disaster alerts and event mapping powered by GDACS.
• 📍 Safety Locators — Dynamic lookup of nearby critical infrastructure like hospitals and police stations.
• 🌍 Country Metrics — Detailed geographic and geopolitical data (population, capitals, currencies, driving side) via the REST Countries API.
• 📊 Interactive Analytics — Visualized environmental trends using Chart.js for intuitive forecasting.

🧠 System Architecture

TerraBrewer utilizes a multi-source data fusion engine coordinated by serverless backend endpoints:

graph TD;
    Client[Browser Frontend UI] -->|Search Query| Vercel[Vercel Serverless API / Express];
    Vercel -->|Fetch Context| REST[REST Countries API];
    Vercel -->|Fetch Weather| OWM[OpenWeatherMap API];
    Vercel -->|Fetch Alerts| GDACS[GDACS API];
    Vercel -->|Geocoding| Nom[Nominatim OSM API];
    REST --> Vercel;
    OWM --> Vercel;
    GDACS --> Vercel;
    Nom --> Vercel;
    Vercel -->|Aggregated JSON| Client;
    Client -->|Render View| UI[Glassmorphic Dashboard];

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The application intelligently merges these streams to provide a holistic view of any location on Earth, keeping your API keys hidden from the frontend.

🚀 Getting Started

🔧 Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14.x or higher)
• OpenWeatherMap API Key (Get one here)

🛠️ Local Installation

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/HeX-ecutioner/terrabrewer.git
cd terrabrewer

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Create your environment file by duplicating .env.example:

cp .env.example .env

4. Add your API key inside .env:

OPENWEATHER_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"

▶️ Running the App Locally

Start the optimized development server:

npm start

Then, seamlessly open http://localhost:3000 in your browser!

☁️ Deployment (Vercel)

TerraBrewer is fully optimized for edge deployment on Vercel. The application structure maps the api/ directory directly to serverless functions via vercel.json.

1. Install the Vercel CLI:

npm i -g vercel

2. Link to your Vercel project and deploy:

vercel

3. Add your OPENWEATHER_API_KEY to your Vercel project's Environment Variables.
4. Deploy to production:

vercel --prod

ℹ️ Additional Information

📂 APIs Used

• OpenWeatherMap — Weather & Forecasts
• REST Countries — Global Country Data
• GDACS — Global Disaster Alerts
• Nominatim (OSM) — Geocoding & Search

📦 Dependencies

• express — Backend Framework
• dotenv — Environment Management
• node-fetch — Server-side API Requests
• cors — Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
• Chart.js — Frontend Data Visualization

⚖️ License

This app uses the MIT License