Communicar Server

Backend API for Communicar, a peer-to-peer car rental platform. Owners list cars; renters search, book, pay, and chat with owners in real time.

The frontend client lives in a separate repository under the CommuniCar Dev Club organization.

Features

• Auth — email/password signup and login, Google OAuth
• Cars — geo and availability search, listing details
• Bookings — create and fetch bookings with Stripe PaymentIntents
• Profile (/me) — profile, password, avatar uploads (MinIO presigned URLs), saved payment methods, trip history and ratings
• Owner tools — manage cars, view reservations and stats
• Messaging — car/booking-linked conversations, text and image messages, read receipts, WebSocket delivery
• Payments — Stripe setup intents, saved cards, webhooks

Tech Stack

• Node.js 22, TypeScript, Express 5
• PostgreSQL, Prisma 7
• Zod 4 (request validation)
• Stripe, MinIO (S3-compatible storage)
• WebSockets (ws)
• Vitest, Supertest

Architecture

flowchart LR
  Client --> Routes
  Routes --> Controllers
  Controllers --> Services
  Services --> Prisma
  Services --> Stripe
  Services --> MinIO
  Client --> WebSocket
  WebSocket --> Services

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Request flow: Route → Controller → Service → (Mapper) → Prisma

All REST endpoints are prefixed with /api/v1. Success responses use { data, meta: { requestedAt } }. Errors return { code, message, fields? }.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• PostgreSQL (local — not included in Docker Compose)
• MinIO (via Docker Compose or a local install)
• Optional: Stripe test keys, Google OAuth client ID

Getting Started

npm ci
cp .env.example .env        # fill in your values
npx prisma generate
npx prisma migrate deploy
npm run db:seed             # requires MinIO running
npm run dev

The API is available at http://localhost:3000/api/v1.

Docker (app + MinIO)

docker compose up

Docker Compose runs the Node app and MinIO. PostgreSQL must run separately — set DATABASE_URL in .env to point at your host database (host.docker.internal on macOS). Compose overrides MINIO_ENDPOINT to minio.

MinIO console: http://localhost:9001 (default credentials: minioadmin / minioadmin).

Environment Variables

Copy .env.example to .env for local development.

Variable	Required	Default / notes
DATABASE_URL	Yes	PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET	Prod	Falls back to a dev value if unset
PORT	No	3000
FRONTEND_URL	No	CORS origin; http://localhost:5173
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY	No	Stripe is disabled when absent
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET	No	Required only for webhook verification
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID	No	Required for Google auth
MINIO_ENDPOINT	No	localhost
MINIO_PORT	No	9000
MINIO_USE_SSL	No	false
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY	No	minioadmin
MINIO_SECRET_KEY	No	minioadmin
MINIO_BUCKET	No	communicar
MINIO_PRESIGN_EXPIRY_SECONDS	No	86400
MINIO_UPLOAD_PRESIGN_EXPIRY_SECONDS	No	900

API Overview

Prefix	Endpoints
/api/v1/auth	POST /login, /signup, /google
/api/v1/cars	GET /search, GET /:carId
/api/v1/bookings	POST /, GET /:id
/api/v1/me	Profile, avatar, payment methods, trips, owner cars and reservations
/api/v1/conversations	List, create, delete; messages; mark read
/api/v1/webhooks/stripe	Stripe webhook handler
/api/v1/ws/messages	WebSocket for real-time messages (JWT auth frame)

Protected routes require a Authorization: Bearer <token> header.

Testing

cp .env.test.example .env.test   # adjust DATABASE_URL if needed
createdb communicar_test          # or equivalent
npm test

Test setup loads .env.test, runs prisma migrate deploy automatically, and strips Stripe keys. Tests use a shared database with per-test truncation (fileParallelism: false).

Script	Description
npm test	All tests
npm run test:unit	Utils and services
npm run test:integration	Route integration tests
npm run test:watch	Watch mode

Scripts

Script	Description
npm run dev	Start dev server (nodemon)
npm run build	Compile TypeScript to dist/
npm start	Run compiled server
npm run db:seed	Reset and seed demo data

Project Structure

src/
├── routes/          # Express routers per domain
├── controllers/     # Thin request handlers
├── services/        # Business logic and database access
├── mappers/         # DB record → API shape transforms
├── DTO/             # Zod input/output schemas
├── middleware/      # Auth, validation, error handling
├── lib/             # Prisma, Stripe, MinIO clients
├── ws/              # WebSocket message handler
├── utils/           # Pricing, geo, availability helpers
└── tests/           # Shared test helpers and factories
prisma/
├── schema.prisma
├── migrations/
└── seed.ts
types/               # Inferred types from DTOs