InnerCircles

Private communities. Real conversations. Public anonymity.

Node • Express • PostgreSQL • Passport • Tailwind

InnerCircles is a modern, community-based social platform where users can:

• Create and join private circles
• Post publicly or privately
• Reveal identities only within their circles
• Manage members with strict role-based permissions

It blends privacy, collaboration, and anonymity into a clean, simple user experience — making it a portfolio-grade full-stack project.

This project started as The Odin Project – Members Only assignment, but evolved into a full-featured, production-style web application with real authorization rules, role-based permissions, and relational data integrity.

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🚀 Live Preview

🔗 Live App:
👉 https://innercircles.devxsameer.me/

Hosted on Render + Neon PostgreSQL.

Note: First visit may take a few seconds if Render has spun down the instance.

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🚀 Live Concept

See posts. Join circles. Speak freely.

In InnerCircles:

• Anyone can read public posts
• Only circle members can see who wrote them
• Each circle governs its own members, roles, and content

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✨ Key Features

🔐 Authentication

• Local auth using Passport.js
• Session-based login with PostgreSQL session store
• Bcrypt password hashing
• Rate-limited login endpoint (secure for production)

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Circles (Communities)

• Users can create their own circles
• Circle creator automatically becomes owner
• Role-based system:
  • Owner – full control
  • Admin – manage members & roles
  • Member – post and interact
• Owners & admins can:
  • Add members by username
  • Promote/demote members
  • Remove members (with strict rules)
• SQL triggers keep members_count up to date automatically

📝 Posts & Privacy

• Create, edit, and delete posts inside circles
• Visibility types:
  • public
  • members_only
• Identity reveal is circle-based:
  • Outside → Anonymous
  • Inside → Real username
• Pagination for all feeds

🛡 Authorization & Security

• Policy-based permission system
• Loader middlewares (loadPost, loadCircle, loadMembership)
• Separation of concerns:
  • Routes → Controllers → Services → Models
• Business rules enforced at:
  • Service layer
  • Database constraints
  • PostgreSQL triggers

📊 Performance & UX

• Pagination for posts and circles
• Popular circles ranked by member count
• Indexed queries for efficient lookups
• Clean, responsive UI using Tailwind CSS

🏠 Homepage

• Latest public posts
• Most popular circles
• Clean, Tailwind-powered design

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📸 Screenshots

Home Page

Circle Details Page

Manage Circle Page

All Posts Page

Create Post Page

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🧠 Architecture Overview

src/
├── routes/        # Route definitions
├── controllers/   # Request handling & view rendering
├── services/      # Business logic layer
├── models/        # Database queries & data access
├── policies/      # Permission & authorization rules
├── middlewares/   # Auth, loaders, validators
├── utils/         # Helpers, custom errors, pagination
├── views/         # Handlebars templates
└── database/      # PostgreSQL connection pool

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🗄 Database Design

Core tables

• users
• circles
• circle_members
• posts

Notable design choices

• members_count cached on circles via PostgreSQL triggers
• Single owner enforced per circle
• Role constraints at DB level
• Automatic edited_at updates via trigger
• Defensive foreign keys with cascading deletes

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⚙️ Tech Stack

Backend

• Node.js
• Express 5
• PostgreSQL (Neon)
• Passport.js (local strategy)
• express-session
• bcrypt
• connect-pg-simple (session store)

Frontend

• Handlebars
• Tailwind CSS

Tooling

• pnpm
• nodemon
• dotenv
• Concurrently

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🧪 Demo Data

The project includes realistic seed data:

• Multiple users
• Five circles with varied roles
• 20+ long-form posts
• Mixed visibility (public / members-only)

This makes the app immediately demo-ready.

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🏃 Getting Started

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/devxsameer/inner-circles.git
cd inner-circles

2. Install dependencies

pnpm install

3. Environment variables

Create a .env file

DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/inner_circles
SESSION_SECRET=supersecret
NODE_ENV=development

4. Initialize database

Run the SQL schema and seed file:

psql $DATABASE_URL -f sql/init.sql

5. Start development server

pnpm dev

App runs at:
👉 http://localhost:6969

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🔑 Example Demo Accounts

For demo/testing purposes only
(Passwords are intentionally identical in seed data)

Username	Password
alice	password
bob	password
charlie	password

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📌 Why This Project Matters

This project demonstrates:

• ✅ Real-world authorization logic
• ✅ Clean Express.js architecture
• ✅ Thoughtful database design
• ✅ Security-first mindset

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🛣 Future Improvements

Planned enhancements include:

• 🔐 CSRF protection
• 🔑 OAuth login (Google / GitHub)
• 💬 Comment threads
• 🔔 Notifications system
• 🌐 Full REST / JSON API mode

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the ISC License.

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🙌 Acknowledgements

Inspired by The Odin Project,
expanded with production-style architecture, strict permissions, and real privacy rules.

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👨‍💻 Author

Sameer Ali

Full-Stack Developer | Community-Driven Builder | Open-Source Contributor

Passionate about crafting clean, scalable applications and building community-based platforms.
Focused on JavaScript, Node.js, and modern full-stack development.

🌍 Links

• 🌐 Portfolio: https://devxsameer.me
• 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devxsameer/
• 🐦 Twitter (X): https://x.com/devxsameer
• 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/devxsameer

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If you like this project:

👉 Give it a star on GitHub! ⭐

It truly helps!

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