PenThread is a modern, full-stack blogging platform designed for content creators, readers, and moderators to collaborate seamlessly. Built with enterprise-grade architecture, it delivers:

🌟 Rich content creation with categories and tags 📊 Role-based dashboards (User, Author, Admin) 💬 Advanced comment system with moderation ❤️ Social interactions (likes, favorites, views) 🔔 Real-time notifications 🎨 Beautiful, responsive UI with dark mode

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    PENTHREAD PLATFORM                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                          │
│  ┌──────────────────┐        ┌───────────────────┐     │
│  │   REACT FRONTEND │◄──────►│  EXPRESS BACKEND  │     │
│  │                  │  REST  │                   │     │
│  │  • Vite + React  │  API   │  • Node.js        │     │
│  │  • Tailwind CSS  │        │  • JWT Auth       │     │
│  │  • Zustand       │        │  • Mongoose ODM   │     │
│  │  • Axios         │        │  • Joi Validation │     │
│  └──────────────────┘        └───────────────────┘     │
│         ▲                              ▲                │
│         │                              │                │
│         │                              ▼                │
│         │                    ┌───────────────────┐     │
│         │                    │  MONGODB DATABASE │     │
│         │                    │                   │     │
│         │                    │  • Users          │     │
│         │                    │  • Posts          │     │
│         │                    │  • Comments       │     │
│         └────────────────────│  • Interactions   │     │
│           JWT + localStorage │  • Notifications  │     │
│                              └───────────────────┘     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• JWT-based secure authentication
• Role-based access control (User, Author, Admin)
• Password reset with email verification
• Token refresh mechanism

• Rich blog post creation and editing
• Category and tag organization
• Draft/Publish workflow
• Author-owned content management

• Nested comment threads
• Author/Admin comment moderation (Approve/Reject)
• Comment status tracking (Pending/Approved/Rejected)
• Comment owner deletion rights

• Like posts
• Favorite/bookmark posts
• View count tracking
• User interaction history

• User Dashboard: Personal activity and stats
• Author Dashboard: Post performance metrics
• Admin Dashboard: Platform-wide analytics

• Comment notifications
• Moderation updates
• Interaction alerts
• Mark as read/unread

• Responsive design (mobile-first)
• Dark mode support
• Smooth animations (Framer Motion)
• Accessibility compliant

📦 penthread/
│
├── 📁 backend/              # Node.js + Express API
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── config/          # DB, logger, env configs
│   │   ├── modules/         # Feature modules (auth, posts, etc.)
│   │   ├── middlewares/     # Auth, validation, error handling
│   │   ├── utils/           # Helpers, constants
│   │   ├── app.js           # Express app setup
│   │   └── server.js        # Server entry point
│   ├── .env
│   ├── package.json
│   └── README.md
│
├── 📁 frontend/             # React + Vite SPA
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/      # Reusable UI components
│   │   ├── pages/           # Route pages
│   │   ├── hooks/           # Custom React hooks
│   │   ├── services/        # API service layer
│   │   ├── store/           # Zustand stores
│   │   ├── context/         # React contexts
│   │   ├── utils/           # Helper functions
│   │   ├── App.jsx
│   │   └── main.jsx
│   ├── .env
│   ├── package.json
│   └── README.md
│
└── 📘 README.md             # This file

• Node.js 18+ and npm 9+
• MongoDB 6+ (local or Atlas)
• Git

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/penthread.git
cd penthread

cd backend
npm install
cp .env.sample .env
# Edit .env with your MongoDB URI, JWT secret, etc.
npm run db:seed  # Seed database with sample data
npm run dev      # Start backend on port 5000

cd ../frontend
npm install
cp .env.sample .env
# Set VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5000/api
npm run dev      # Start frontend on port 5173

• Frontend: http://localhost:5173
• Backend API: http://localhost:5000/api

http://localhost:5000/api

Import Postman Collection: backend/postman_collection.json

✅ Authentication

• JWT access & refresh tokens
• Bcrypt password hashing (10 rounds)
• HTTP-only cookies (optional)

✅ Authorization

• Role-based middleware protection
• Resource ownership validation
• API endpoint guarding

✅ Data Protection

• Request validation with Joi schemas
• MongoDB injection prevention
• XSS protection via React JSX
• CORS configuration
• Rate limiting (Helmet + express-rate-limit)

✅ Best Practices

• Environment variable isolation
• Centralized error handling
• Audit logging with Winston
• Secure HTTP headers

• users - User accounts with role and profile info
• posts - Blog posts with status, categories, tags
• comments - Comments with moderation status
• categories - Post categorization
• tags - Post tagging
• interactions - Likes, favorites, views
• notifications - User notifications
• activityLogs - Audit trail

• Users ↔ Posts (1:N - author relationship)
• Posts ↔ Comments (1:N)
• Posts ↔ Categories (N:M)
• Posts ↔ Tags (N:M)
• Users ↔ Interactions (1:N)

cd backend
npm run test        # Run Jest tests (to be implemented)

Postman Collection:

• Automated tests for all endpoints
• Environment variables for token management
• Complete workflow testing

cd frontend
npm run test        # Run Vitest (to be implemented)
npm run test:e2e    # Run Playwright E2E tests

# Build command
npm install
# Start command
npm run start
# Environment variables
NODE_ENV=production
MONGO_URI=<your-mongodb-atlas-uri>
JWT_SECRET=<your-secret>

# Build command
npm run build
# Output directory
dist/
# Environment variables
VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://your-backend-api.com/api

• Full authentication system
• Post CRUD with workflow
• Comment system with moderation
• Dashboard analytics
• Social interactions

• Real-time notifications (WebSocket)
• Rich text editor (TinyMCE/Quill)
• Image upload (Cloudinary)
• Advanced search & filters
• Email queue system

• Multi-language support (i18n)
• Mobile app (React Native)
• SEO optimization
• Analytics dashboard v2
• AI-powered content suggestions

We welcome contributions! Here's how:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add AmazingFeature')
4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

• Follow existing code style
• Write meaningful commit messages
• Add tests for new features
• Update documentation

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

• Email: hemanths7.dev@gmail.com
• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

• React team for the amazing framework
• Express.js community
• MongoDB for flexible data modeling
• Tailwind CSS for beautiful styling
• All open-source contributors

If you find PenThread helpful, please give it a ⭐ on GitHub!

🚀 Built with MERN, designed for scale, crafted with care. Made by developers, for developers and content creators.