eLabrary

A full-stack digital library platform for discovering books, tracking reading progress, writing reviews, and using AI-assisted study tools.

Overview

This repository contains two apps:

• client/ - Next.js frontend
• server/ - Express + MongoDB backend

Main features include:

• Book browsing, search, and detail pages
• Authentication and protected routes
• Reading progress tracking and streaks
• Reviews, ratings, bookmarks, and recommendations
• Admin tools for book management and imports
• AI study assistance and smart import workflows

Project Structure

• client/ - Next.js app router UI, components, hooks, and client state
• server/ - API, database models, routes, services, jobs, and scripts
• render.yaml - Render deployment config for the backend

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or newer
• npm 9 or newer
• MongoDB connection string
• Cloudinary credentials for media uploads
• Gemini API key for AI features
• Redis is optional; when unavailable, AI jobs run inline instead of through a background worker

Setup

1. Install dependencies

cd client
npm install

cd ../server
npm install

2. Configure environment variables

Create local env files from the examples provided:

• client/.env.local
• server/.env

Client example:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

Server example:

PORT=5000
NODE_ENV=development
MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string
JWT_ACCESS_SECRET=your_access_secret
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=your_refresh_secret
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:3000
CORS_ORIGINS=http://localhost:3000
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key
GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-2.0-flash
GEMINI_EMBEDDING_MODEL=gemini-embedding-001
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=your_cloudinary_name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=your_cloudinary_key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=your_cloudinary_secret
REDIS_URL=redis://127.0.0.1:6379
PDF_OCR_DPI=220
PDF_OCR_LANG=eng
PDF_TEXT_MIN_WORDS=120
PDF_TEXT_MIN_PAGE_WORDS=18

If you do not want to run Redis locally, you can omit REDIS_URL. The server will still start and AI study jobs will execute inline.

3. Run the apps

Start the backend first:

cd server
npm run dev

Start the frontend in a separate terminal:

cd client
npm run dev

By default, the client runs on http://localhost:3000 and the server runs on http://localhost:5000.

Available Scripts

Client

• npm run dev - start the Next.js dev server
• npm run build - build the frontend
• npm run start - start the production frontend
• npm run lint - run Next.js linting

Server

• npm run dev - start the API in development mode
• npm run build - compile TypeScript
• npm run start - run the compiled server
• npm run lint - type-check without emitting files

Deployment

The backend is configured for Render using render.yaml. Update the production environment variables in your hosting platform before deployment.

Documentation

The repository now keeps the core project README only. Refer to the source code, environment examples, and deployment config in the client/ and server/ folders for setup details.

AI Study - Flashcards API

Server endpoint: GET /api/ai-study/:bookId/flashcards?count=8

• Auth: Protected (must include Authorization: Bearer <token>)
• Returns JSON: { flashcards: [{ question, answer }], total, cached }
• Cached: responses cached for 24 hours in AIStudyCache.

Client: the AIStudyPanel exposes a new "Flashcards" tab which calls the API when opened. The client hook is useAIStudy(bookId) and returns flashcards under the flashcards key.

Example curl (replace host, token, and book id):

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <TOKEN>" "http://localhost:5000/api/ai-study/<BOOK_ID>/flashcards?count=8"