The Forum

A lightweight, feature-rich forum application built with Go and SQLite. This project follows a clean, modular architecture (DDD-lite) to ensure scalability and maintainability.

Features

• Authentication & Security:
  • Secure registration and login using Bcrypt for password hashing.
  • Session management using UUID and HttpOnly cookies.
• Posts & Content:
  • Create and view posts with titles and descriptions.
  • Categorize posts (supports multiple categories per post).
  • Filter posts by category, user, or liked posts.
• Interactions:
  • Like or dislike posts and comments.
  • Nested comment system for discussions.
• Design:
  • Responsive UI built with Vanilla CSS and HTML templates.
  • Dynamic updates using the internal JSON API.

🛠 Tech Stack

• Backend: Go (Golang)
• Database: SQLite3
• Frontend: HTML5, Vanilla CSS, Vanilla JavaScript
• Security: Bcrypt, UUID v4

📂 Architecture

The project is structured into three distinct layers to decouple business logic from data access and the web interface:

1. Handler Layer: Manages HTTP requests/responses, JSON encoding, and template rendering.
2. Service Layer: The "Brain" of the application. Handles validation, business rules, and coordinates between repositories.
3. Repository Layer: Handles raw SQL queries and interacts directly with the SQLite database.

🏁 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.25+ installed on your system.
• GCC (required for the SQLite driver).

Running Locally

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://learn.zone01kisumu.ke/git/sjarso/forum.git
   cd forum

2. Run the application:

   go run cmd/app/main.go

   The server will start at http://localhost:8080. The database will be automatically initialized on the first run.

Running with Docker

1. Build and run the container:

   docker build -t forum-app .
   docker run -p 8080:8080 forum-app

🏗 Database Schema

The database is managed via automatic migrations. Core tables include:

• users: User profiles and credentials.
• posts: Core forum content.
• categories: Available topics.
• post_categories: Links posts to their respective categories.
• comments: Discussion threads.
• reactions: Like/Dislike tracking.
• sessions: Active user sessions.

🤝 Contributing

1. Create a feature branch (feat/your-feature).
2. Commit changes using descriptive messages.
3. Open a Pull Request for review.