🟢 NestJS Chat API

Overview

This is a real-time chat API built with NestJS, TypeORM, and PostgreSQL (running in Docker). It provides:

• User registration & authentication (JWT-based)
• Chat messaging between users
• Database persistence with PostgreSQL
• Dockerized setup for easy local development
• Ready to scale for real-time features or microservices integration

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Tech Stack

• Backend: NestJS, TypeScript, TypeORM
• Database: PostgreSQL (Dockerized)
• Authentication: JWT
• Dev Tools: Docker Compose, npm

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Features

• User management (register, login)
• CRUD operations for chat messages
• Modular and clean architecture
• Easily extensible for future real-time updates (WebSockets)

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Folder Structure

src
├── auth
│   ├── dto
│   │   └── login.dto.ts
│   ├── auth.controller.ts
│   ├── auth.module.ts
│   ├── auth.service.ts
│   ├── jwt-auth.guard.ts
│   └── jwt.strategy.ts
├── chat
│   ├── dto
│   │   ├── create-room.dto.ts
│   │   └── send-message.dto.ts
│   ├── entities
│   │   ├── message.entity.ts
│   │   └── room.entity.ts
│   ├── chat.controller.ts
│   ├── chat.gateway.ts
│   ├── chat.module.ts
│   └── chat.service.ts
├── users
│   ├── dto
│   │   └── create-user.dto.ts
│   ├── entities
│   │   └── user.entity.ts
│   ├── users.controller.ts
│   ├── users.module.ts
│   └── users.service.ts
├── app.controller.spec.ts
├── app.controller.ts
├── app.module.ts
├── app.service.ts
└── main.ts

🛠 Setup & Run

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Vintanina/chat-api.git

cd chat-api

2. Create .env file

DATABASE_URL=postgres://chat:chat@localhost:6543/chat_db PORT=3000 JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

Adjust DATABASE_URL if Postgres is running in Docker with a different port or credentials.

3. Start PostgreSQL with Docker (Optionnal)

docker compose up -d

The container exposes Postgres on port 6543.

Check logs if needed:

docker compose logs -f db

4. Install dependencies

npm install

5. Run the NestJS application

npm run start:dev

The API runs on http://localhost:3000

6. Test the API

Example: register a user via curl:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/auth/register
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-d '{"username":"alice","email":"alice@mail.com","password":"secret123"}'

7. Notes

   Make sure TypeOrmModule is properly configured with your entities and autoLoadEntities: true.

   If the database is slow to start, NestJS retries automatically (configured via retryAttempts and retryDelay).

   Use docker compose down -v to clean volumes if you want a fresh database.