##📇 ContactManager App

ContactManager is a simple yet powerful MERN stack application that helps users manage their contacts efficiently.
🚀 Built while following a YouTube tutorial, this project helped me learn how routing, authentication, and CRUD operations work in a real-world Node + Mongo backend — as someone who already knows React!

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🗂️ Project Structure

mycontacts-backend/
│
├── config/
│   └── dbConnection.js          # MongoDB connection setup
│
├── controllers/
│   ├── contactController.js     # Contact operations logic
│   └── userController.js        # User auth logic
│
├── middleware/
│   ├── errorHandler.js          # Custom error middleware
│   └── validateTokenHandler.js  # JWT token validation
│
├── models/
│   ├── contactModel.js          # Mongoose contact schema
│   └── userModel.js             # Mongoose user schema
│
├── routes/
│   ├── contactRoutes.js         # Contact routes
│   └── userRoutes.js            # Auth routes
│
├── .gitignore
├── constants.js
├── package.json
├── server.js                   # App entry point
└── README.md

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✨ Key Features

• 🔐 JWT-based authentication
• 🔑 Secure password hashing with bcrypt
• 📇 Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD) for contacts
• 🔒 Protected routes so users only access their own data
• ⚠️ Custom error handling for clean API responses

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Tool	Role
🟢 Node.js	Backend runtime
⚙️ Express.js	REST API framework
🍃 MongoDB	NoSQL database
📦 Mongoose	MongoDB ODM
🔑 bcrypt	Password hashing
🔐 jsonwebtoken	Auth token generation & validation
📁 dotenv	Environment variable management

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🚀 Getting Started

1️⃣ Clone the Repo

git clone <repository-url>
cd mycontacts-backend

2️⃣ Install Dependencies

npm install

3️⃣ Add Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory:

PORT=5000
MONGO_URI=<your_mongodb_connection_string>
ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET=<your_jwt_secret>

4️⃣ Run the Server

npm start

📍 Server will be live at: http://localhost:5000

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📡 API Endpoints

🔐 Auth Routes:

• POST /api/users/register → Register a new user
• POST /api/users/login → Login & receive JWT
• GET /api/users/current → Get current user (protected)

📇 Contact Routes:

• GET /api/contacts → Get all contacts for logged-in user
• POST /api/contacts → Create new contact
• GET /api/contacts/:id → Get contact by ID
• PUT /api/contacts/:id → Update contact
• DELETE /api/contacts/:id → Delete contact

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🌱 Future Enhancements

• 💻 Frontend with React UI (coming soon!)
• 🔄 Refresh token implementation
• 🔍 Pagination & search for large contact lists
• 👤 User profile management
• 🧪 Unit & integration tests
• 🚫 Improved error responses with validation

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🎯 Why This Project?

I followed a YouTube tutorial to get hands-on experience with backend development as a React developer. This helped me understand backend routing, REST APIs, JWT authentication, and working with MongoDB — all through practical application. 🙌