💻 BACKEND

📘 Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root of your backend project and add the following variables.
Each one is explained below.

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🌥️ Cloudinary (For Image & Video Uploads)

• CLOUDINARY_API_KEY — Your Cloudinary API key
• CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET — Your Cloudinary secret key
• CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME — Your Cloudinary cloud name

Get them from:
🔗 https://cloudinary.com/console

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🔒 JWT (Authentication)

• JWT_SECRET — Secret key used to sign and verify user authentication tokens

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🗄️ MongoDB (Database)

• MONGODB_URI — Your MongoDB connection string

Get it from:
🔗 https://cloud.mongodb.com

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💌 SMTP / Email (Nodemailer)

• SMTP_FROM — Email address shown as sender
• SMTP_HOST — SMTP host (e.g. smtp.gmail.com)
• SMTP_PORT — SMTP port (e.g. 587 for TLS)
• SMTP_USER — SMTP username (email)
• SMTP_PASS — SMTP password or app password

Learn how to create Gmail App Passwords:
🔗 https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords

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🌐 Frontend & CORS

• CORS_ORIGIN — Allowed frontend domain for API requests
• FRONTEND_URL — URL of your frontend site

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⚙️ Environment

• NODE_ENV — Current environment mode (development or production)

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🧰 Setup

npm install
npm run dev