Interview Bank

Community-powered interview experience sharing with company pages, question clustering, and prediction hints.

This folder is self-contained and can be used as its own Git repo root.

Architecture walkthrough: ARCHITECTURE.md

At A Glance

flowchart LR
    U[User]

    subgraph Vercel
        UI[Interview Bank UI]
    end

    subgraph Render
        API[Interview Bank Service]
    end

    subgraph Supabase
        DB[(Postgres)]
    end

    TG[Token Generator]

    U --> UI
    UI -->|/api/v1/*| API
    API --> DB
    UI -. verified contributor token .-> TG

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Main Submission Flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant U as User
    participant UI as Submit Page
    participant API as Interview Bank Service
    participant JWT as ContributorTokenValidator
    participant DB as Postgres

    U->>UI: Paste token and submit experience
    UI->>API: POST /api/v1/experiences
    API->>JWT: validateAndExtract(token)
    JWT-->>API: claims
    API->>DB: check jti not used
    API->>DB: save experience + questions
    DB-->>API: saved entity
    API-->>UI: 201 Created
    UI-->>U: Show submitted experience

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Structure

interview-bank/
├── service/              Spring Boot API on :8080
├── ui/                   React + Vite UI on :5173
├── docker-compose.yml    Local stack for this repo
└── .env.example

Dependency On Token Generator

Interview submissions still use the standalone token-generator service.

• Interview Bank UI: http://localhost:5173
• Interview Bank API: http://localhost:8080
• Token Generator UI: http://localhost:5174
• Token Generator API: http://localhost:8081
• JWT_SECRET must be identical in both repos

Browsing and reading experiences works without token-generator. Submission flow needs token-generator running.

Prerequisites

Docker path:

• Docker Desktop
• Docker Compose v2

Local dev path:

• Java 17+
• Maven 3.8+
• Node.js 20+
• npm

First-Time Setup

Create the repo-level env file:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank
cp .env.example .env

The repo-root .env is auto-loaded by the Spring Boot service for local runs.

Run This Repo With Docker

From the repo root:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank
docker compose up --build

Stop it later with:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank
docker compose down

Services started by this repo:

• UI: http://localhost:5173
• API: http://localhost:8080
• Postgres: localhost:5432

Note: Docker runs the service in the prod profile, so H2 console is not available in this mode.

Run This Repo Locally Without Docker

Terminal 1:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank/service
mvn spring-boot:run

Terminal 2:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank/ui
npm install
npm run dev

Local URLs:

• UI: http://localhost:5173
• API: http://localhost:8080
• H2 console: http://localhost:8080/h2-console

Full Submission Flow Locally

If you want token-based submission to work end-to-end, run both repos.

Terminal 1:

cd /home/chinu/token-generator
docker compose up redis -d

Terminal 2:

cd /home/chinu/token-generator/service
mvn spring-boot:run

Terminal 3:

cd /home/chinu/token-generator/ui
npm install
npm run dev

Terminal 4:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank/service
mvn spring-boot:run

Terminal 5:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank/ui
npm install
npm run dev

Then use:

1. http://localhost:5174/?app=interview-bank to generate a token
2. http://localhost:5173/submit to submit an experience

Environment

Repo root .env:

JWT_SECRET=change-me-to-a-strong-random-secret-at-least-32-chars
DATABASE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://postgres:5432/interviewbank
DATABASE_USERNAME=ib_user
DATABASE_PASSWORD=ib_pass

Optional UI env file for custom API or hosted environments:

cd /home/chinu/interview-bank/ui
cp .env.example .env.local

ui/.env.local values:

VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/api/v1
VITE_TOKEN_GENERATOR_UI_URL=http://localhost:5174

In local dev mode the service uses H2 automatically. Database variables are mainly for Docker or the prod profile.

Deploy On Vercel + Render + Supabase

Production setup for this repo is:

• ui/ on Vercel
• service/ on Render
• Postgres on Supabase
• Vercel rewrites /api/v1/* to the deployed backend service

Supabase Postgres

Create a Supabase project first, then open Connect in the Supabase dashboard and copy a Postgres connection string.

For Spring Boot on a hosted platform, use a JDBC URL in this shape:

DATABASE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://HOST:PORT/postgres?sslmode=require
DATABASE_USERNAME=YOUR_SUPABASE_DB_USER
DATABASE_PASSWORD=YOUR_SUPABASE_DB_PASSWORD

If your host cannot use Supabase direct IPv6 connections, use Supavisor session mode from the same Connect screen and convert that URL to jdbc:postgresql://....

Render Service

In Render, create a Web Service from this repo and set:

• Runtime: Docker
• Dockerfile Path: service/Dockerfile
• Health Check Path: /actuator/health

Recommended Render variables on the interview-bank service:

SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod
PORT=8080
JWT_SECRET=your-shared-jwt-secret
APP_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://your-interview-bank.vercel.app
DATABASE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://HOST:PORT/postgres?sslmode=require
DATABASE_USERNAME=YOUR_SUPABASE_DB_USER
DATABASE_PASSWORD=YOUR_SUPABASE_DB_PASSWORD

Notes:

• DATABASE_URL must use the jdbc:postgresql://... format for Spring Boot.
• SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod is required for hosted Postgres.
• The service reads PORT, so it can run correctly on Render.
• Render free services can spin down after inactivity, so expect a cold start after idle time.

Vercel UI

In Vercel, import this repo and set:

• Root Directory: ui
• Framework Preset: Vite
• Build Command: npm run build
• Output Directory: dist

Set Vercel environment variables:

VITE_API_BASE_URL=/api/v1
VITE_TOKEN_GENERATOR_UI_URL=https://your-token-generator.vercel.app

This repo's vercel.json proxies /api/v1/:path* to the deployed backend service. If the Render URL changes later, update only that destination URL. The UI code itself does not need to change.

Post-Deploy Checks

Test in this order:

1. Render health: https://YOUR-INTERVIEW-BANK.onrender.com/actuator/health
2. Render API: https://YOUR-INTERVIEW-BANK.onrender.com/api/v1/companies
3. Vercel proxied API: https://YOUR-INTERVIEW-BANK.vercel.app/api/v1/companies
4. Vercel UI: https://YOUR-INTERVIEW-BANK.vercel.app

Expected health response:

{"status":"UP"}

API Summary

• GET /api/v1/companies
• GET /api/v1/companies/trending
• GET /api/v1/companies/{slug}
• GET /api/v1/companies/{slug}/experiences
• GET /api/v1/experiences/{id}
• POST /api/v1/experiences
• GET /api/v1/companies/{slug}/predict?role=...

POST /api/v1/experiences requires X-Contributor-Token, issued by the separate token-generator service.