CiviLink – Government Service Application

A platform for citizens, officers, and administrators to manage national services efficiently.

🔗 Live Deployment: https://civilink.onrender.com/
📧 Additional Contact: ob22adegefu123@gmail.com

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📌 Overview

CiviLink is a role-based government service automation system that allows:

👤 Citizens

• Apply for TIN (Tax Identification Number)
• Apply for Vital Registration
• Track application status
• Submit questions & queries to officers

🧑‍💼 Officers

• Receive and process applications
• Approve or reject requests
• Respond to citizen queries
• Publish weekly announcements (if assigned)

👨‍⚖️ Admins

• Manage officer accounts
• Assign and remove roles
• View system metrics
• Monitor system activity

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🏗 Project Architecture

The system follows a modular full-stack architecture:

CiviLink/
│
├── client/        # React frontend
├── server/        # Node.js backend
├── docs/          # All documentation
└── .github/       # GitHub automation (CI, PR templates)
                   # CI is partially non-functional due to
                   # MongoDB & environment variable limitations

🟦 Frontend: React (JavaScript, no TypeScript)
🟩 Backend: Node.js (JavaScript, Express.js)
🗄 Database: MongoDB
🧪 Testing: Jest, Supertest
🚀 Deployment: Render

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🔧 Tech Stack

Layer	Technologies
Frontend	React, React Router
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB
Validation	Joi
Auth	JWT-based RBAC
Testing	Jest, Supertest
Deployment	Render
Version Control	Git + GitHub (dev → main flow)

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👥 User Roles & Test Accounts

🔹 Admin

• Email: superadmin@civillink.com
• Password: TheAdmin1@

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🔹 News Officer

• Email: fekeAsche@yahoo.com

⚠️ Note: News content is seeded using FakerJS, which is why the text may appear random or meaningless. The news officer changes weekly so if this officer has been reassigned please tell us and we'll update the README

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🔹 Approver Officer

• Email: fekeAsche@yahoo.com

🔹 Customer Support Officer

• Email: SemeK@gmail.com

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🧪 Additional Seeded Test Accounts

Because the application uses seeded data, some backend actions (approval, rejection, or responses) may fail if the data was not part of the original seed.

Additional seeded officers:

Approver Officer

• rylan42@hotmail.com

Customer Support Officer

• orrin.cole@hotmail.com

⚠️ This behavior is intentional and part of backend validation logic.

Password for all officers is: Password123!

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💳 Payments (Chappa – Test Mode)

The application integrates Chappa for payments.

⚠️ Important for Testing:

• When redirected to Chappa’s payment page, DO NOT use your personal phone number or password
• Select one of Chappa’s official test phone numbers
• Complete the payment using test credentials only

This is required because the integration runs in sandbox/test mode.

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🚀 Getting Started

1️⃣ Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/ob22a/CiviLink
cd CiviLink

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2️⃣ Install Dependencies

Client

cd client
npm install

Server

cd server
npm install

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🔐 Environment Variables

Backend (/server/.env.example)

Copy each .env.example file and rename it to .env and fill it with the appropriate values.

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▶️ Run Locally

Start Backend

cd server
npm run dev

Start Frontend

cd client
npm run dev

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🧪 Testing

Backend Tests (Jest + Supertest)

cd server
npm test

✔ Every pull request should include tests where applicable.

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🌀 Git Workflow (Important)

• All development is done on the dev branch

Branch naming

feature/<name>
bugfix/<name>
hotfix/<name>

Merging Rules

• PRs target dev
• dev → main only during releases
• No self-merging allowed

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📄 Documentation

All documentation is located in:

/docs/

Includes:

• Product requirements
• API documentation
• Architecture documentation

Not currently available:

• Roadmaps
• Risk analysis
• Scrum artifacts
• Manuals for officers and Admins

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🔒 Security

The system enforces:

• JWT authentication
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Input validation on all endpoints
• Request logging
• No sensitive data in logs
• HTTPS enforced by Render

To report a security issue, create a GitHub Security Issue or contact the project owner.

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👥 Contributing

See:

/CONTRIBUTING.md

Includes:

• Branch rules
• Commit style
• PR requirements
• Testing expectations
• Reviewer responsibilities

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🎉 Contributors

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📊 Contribution & Commit History Clarification

Most of the development work for this project was carried out in individual forks and the dev branch.

For grading and review purposes:

• Contributors worked primarily in personal forks and feature branches
• Pull requests were merged into dev using squash-and-merge
• Releases from dev to main were also squashed

As a result:

• The number of commits visible in dev or main may appear lower than the actual development effort
• Individual contribution levels are more accurately reflected in:
  • Fork commit histories
  • Pull request discussions
  • The GitHub Contributors graph

Reviewers are encouraged to inspect:

• Individual forks
• Feature branches
• Pull request history
  to better assess the level of contribution.