A RESTful API for a simple blog platform built using Flask and MongoDB. It supports user registration, login, posting articles with image uploads, following users, likes, comments, and personalized feeds.
- User Authentication
- Register and login securely using Flask-Login and Bcrypt.
- Post Management
- Create, read, and delete blog posts.
- Upload images using Cloudinary.
- Social Features
- Follow/unfollow users.
- Like and unlike posts.
- Comment on posts.
- Get feed from followed users.
- Password Validation
- Enforces strong password policy (upper, lower, digit, special char).
- Backend: Flask (Python)
- Database: MongoDB (via Flask-PyMongo)
- Authentication: Flask-Login & Flask-Bcrypt
- Image Upload: Cloudinary
- Environment Variables: python-dotenv
git clone https://github.com/UkohEmmanuel1/Blog_api.git cd Blog_api 2. Create a Virtual Environment
python -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate 3. Install Dependencies pip install -r requirements.txt 4. Create .env File Create a .env file in the project root and add your credentials:
env
SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key
MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=your_cloudinary_cloud_name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=your_cloudinary_api_key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=your_cloudinary_api_secret
python server.py By default, the app will run on:
http://127.0.0.1:5000 🔌 API Endpoints 🔐 Auth Method Endpoint Description POST /auth/register Register a new user POST /auth/login Login existing user POST /auth/logout Logout authenticated user
👤 Users Method Endpoint Description POST /follow/<user_id> Follow a user
📝 Posts Method Endpoint Description POST /posts Create a new post (with image) GET /posts Retrieve all posts GET /posts/<post_id> Retrieve a single post by ID DELETE /posts/<post_id> Delete a post (author only)
📰 Feed Method Endpoint Description GET /feed Get posts from followed users
💬 Comments Method Endpoint Description POST /comments/<post_id> Add a comment GET /comments/<post_id> Retrieve comments
❤️ Likes Method Endpoint Description POST /likes/<post_id> Like or unlike a post (toggle)
🔐 Password Policy To enhance security, passwords must include:
At least 8 characters
At least 1 uppercase letter
At least 1 lowercase letter
At least 1 digit
At least 1 special character
📝 License This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.
🙋♂️ Contact For any inquiries, reach out via emmanuelukoh08@gmail.com.
Let me know if you'd like me to generate a requirements.txt file too, or convert this into an actual downloadable .md file.