PeerPrep

PeerPrep is a collaborative coding platform for users to communicate and collaborate together on Data Structures and Algorithms Interview Questions with a real-time collaboration environment. It is built with a Microservices Architecture for the backend and developed as part of the CS3219 Software Engineering Principles and Patterns module from NUS. This project was built and developed by:

• Joseph Aedan Marcus
• Rayner Loh Jian Ming
• Zechary Au Jun Wen
• Shem Maleriado Limos
• Joel Wong Jun Yong

Joseph Aedan Marcus's Contributions

• Question Service Scraper (/backend/question-service/lambda): Developed a web scraper lambda function that would scrape Leetcode for its questions as a CRON job.
• Question Service Server (/backend/question-service/server): Developed a FastAPI server that serves Leetcode questions through HTTP endpoints, allowing for CRUD operations and pagination.
• Communication Service (/backend/communication-service): Developed the Communication Service, an ExpressJS application that allows users to communicate with one another in real-time via a chat function using Websockets
• PeerPrep UI (/frontend): Developed features and UI elements on the frontend to serve users.

1. Instructions to set up the services for local development

• To run all the services together, please follow the setup instructions for ALL the services.
• This is needed to run the assignments as well. (To view specific instructions for assignments, view the ASSIGNMENTS.md file in the root of the project)

1.1. Frontend (/frontend)

1. In the /frontend/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.2. API Gateway (/backend/api-gateway)

1. In the /backend/api-gateway/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.3. User service (/backend/user-service)

1. In the /backend/user-service/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.4. Question service (/backend/question-service/server)

1. In the /backend/question-service/server/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.5. Matching service (/backend/matching-service)

1. In the /backend/matching-service/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.6. Collaboration service (/backend/collaboration-service)

1. In the /backend/collaboration-service/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

1.7. Communication service (/backend/communication-service)

1. In the /backend/communication-service/app directory, copy the .env.example file and rename it to .env.development
   • For any missing env vars, check with the team to retrieve the secrets from the vault

2. Instructions to run services locally

Pre-requisites

• Ensure you have Docker Desktop (>= v4.22.2) installed (https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/mac-install/)
• Ensure you have followed the instructions above to setup the services for local development

2.1 To run all the services at the same time

1. In the root of the project, run docker compose up
2. Visit the following endpoints for the respective services
   • Frontend: http://localhost:8000
   • API gateway service: http://localhost:8001
   • Users service: http://localhost:8002
   • Questions service: http://localhost:8003
   • Matching service: http://localhost:8004
   • Collaboration service: http://localhost:8005
   • Communication service: http://localhost:8006

Known issues

• Installing new dependencies causes the Docker image to not build properly. If this happens, run docker compose down and then docker compose up --build again.

3. Instructions to deploy services to AWS locally

• You should not have to do this as the GitHub actions will automatically deploy your changes to AWS
• However, if you do have a need to test deployment from locally quickly without having to wait for the GitHub actions to run, you can follow the instructions below

Pre-requisites

• Ensure you have completed the instructions above to set up the services for local development
• Install and setup Pulumi

3.1. Instructions

1. Move to infra directory of the service you want to deploy (e.g. /<service>/infra directory)
2. Ensure you are on the stack you want to test a deploy from (it should usually be staging)
   • You can verify this by running pulumi stack
   • If you are not on the right stack, run pulumi stack select <stack-name> to switch to the right stack
3. Run pulumi up to preview the changes and then deploy them

4. Instructions to create your own service

• Please refer to the README.md in the /backend/template-service directory for instructions to create your own service