Uriel | Organization Management API

Uriel is a secure user and organisation management REST API designed for managing users and organisations. It manages authentication, authorization, user management, organisation management, avatars, and organization-related operations.
Built with Express.js, it demonstrates best practices in backend engineering: authentication, validation, middleware usage, and clean project structure.

---

🧩 What Problem Does Uriel Solve?

Modern organizations need a secure, scalable way to manage users, teams, and organisational membership. Uriel solves the problem of fragmented user and organisation management by providing a unified API for authentication, user profiles, and organisation membership. It streamlines onboarding, profile updates, and secure access to organisational resources, reducing manual admin work and improving security.

Note: Project management features (projects, tasks, comments) are planned for future releases. The database schema is designed to support these features as the application evolves.

---

🛠️ Tech Stack Used

• Node.js (v18+): Fast, scalable backend runtime
• Express.js: Modular REST API framework
• PostgreSQL: Reliable relational database
• Sequelize: ORM for database abstraction
• JWT: Secure authentication and authorization
• Redis: Token blacklisting and caching
• Multer: File uploads (avatars)
• SendGrid: Email workflows (confirmation, password recovery)
• Swagger & Redoc: API documentation

---

🏗️ Architecture Decisions

• Modular Structure:
  Separated concerns into /auth, /controllers, /middlewares, /routes, and /schemas for maintainability and scalability.
• Middleware-Driven:
  Custom middlewares for authentication, validation, error handling, and file uploads.
• Database Abstraction:
  Used Sequelize for easy model management and migrations.
• Token Security:
  JWT for stateless authentication, Redis for blacklisting used tokens.
• Validation:
  AJV and custom schema validation for robust input checking.
• API Documentation:
  Integrated Swagger and Redoc for clear, interactive API docs.

---

📚 What I Learned

• Advanced JWT flows: Implemented refresh tokens, blacklisting, and secure cookie handling.
• Express Middleware Patterns: Built reusable, composable middlewares for security and validation.
• Database Modeling: Designed scalable schemas for users, organizations, and relationships.
• Cloud Integrations: Integrated Redis (Upstash), SendGrid, and Cloudinary for real-world features.
• API Documentation: Automated OpenAPI spec generation and interactive docs.

---

🚧 Challenges Faced & Solutions

• Token Blacklisting:
  Challenge: Preventing reuse of JWTs after logout.
  Solution: Integrated Redis to store and check blacklisted tokens efficiently.

• Email Delivery Reliability:
  Challenge: Ensuring password recovery and confirmation emails are delivered.
  Solution: Used SendGrid and implemented robust error handling and retries.

• File Upload Security:
  Challenge: Handling user avatars securely.
  Solution: Used Multer with Cloudinary, validated file types and sizes.

• Environment Parity:
  Challenge: Differences between local and cloud environments (e.g., Redis connection issues).
  Solution: Added connection health checks, improved error logging, and documented setup steps.

• Schema Validation:
  Challenge: Preventing invalid data from reaching controllers.
  Solution: Built AJV-based validation middleware for all endpoints.

---

🎯 Project Purpose & Goals

Uriel is built to:

• Provide a solid authentication system (JWT login, refresh, logout).
• Enable user profile management (CRUD operations, avatar uploads).
• Support secure password recovery with email workflows.
• Demonstrate scalable, modular Express.js architecture.

---

🛠️ Technical Skills Demonstrated

• Authentication & Authorization – JWT-based secure login system
• Schema Validation – Robust request payload validation with middleware
• Middleware Development – Custom middlewares for security, validation & uploads
• File Uploads – Avatar handling with Multer
• REST API Design – Clean and modular route structuring
• Security Best Practices – Token protection, password recovery, email confirmation, used token blacklisting
• Scalable Architecture – Easy to extend for organizational resource management
• Caching - Redis caching for used token blacklisting

---

🚀 Roadmap

• Organisation and user management
• Secure authentication and authorization
• Avatar uploads and profile management
• Project management (projects, tasks, comments) — coming soon!

---

Database Schema

The schema above shows the current structure for users and organisations, as well as the planned tables for projects, tasks, and comments. This forward-thinking design ensures Uriel can easily expand to full project management capabilities.

---

📊 Features

• 🔐 Authentication: Login, logout, token refresh
• 🧾 User Registration: Schema-validated onboarding
• 📧 Email Confirmation: Verify user emails before full access
• 🔑 Password Recovery: Reset forgotten passwords securely
• 👤 User Management: View & update user profiles
• 🖼️ Avatar Uploads: Upload and serve profile pictures
• 🏢 Organisation Management: Create, update, and manage organisations and memberships
• 📁 Project Management: (Coming soon!) The schema and architecture are ready for future project, task, and comment management.

---

🏗️ API Endpoints

🔐 Authentication (/auth)

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/auth/login	Login with email & password
POST	/auth/register	Register a new user (validated)
GET	/auth/confirmation-email	Confirm user email
GET	/auth/refresh	Refresh expired JWT tokens
POST	/auth/password_recovery	Request password reset
POST	/auth/logout	Log out user session

---

👤 Users (/users)

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/users/:id	Get user by ID (protected)
PUT	/users/update/:id	Update user profile (protected)
POST	/users/:id/upload	Upload avatar (protected)
GET	/users/:id/avatar	Fetch user avatar (protected)
POST	/users/:id/forget-password	Simulate password recovery (demo)

---

🏢 Organisation (/organisation)

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/organisations	Get all organisations for a user
POST	/organisations	Create a new organisation
GET	/organisations/{orgId}	Get organisation by ID
GET	/organisations/{orgId}/allUsers	Get all users in an organisation
POST	/organisations/{orgId}/addUser	Add a user to an organisation
PATCH	/organisations/{orgId}/assign-Admin	Assign admin role to a user
PATCH	/organisations/{orgId}/removeAdmin	Remove admin role from a user
DELETE	/organisations/{orgId}/remove-user	Remove a user from organisation
POST	/organisations/{orgId}/leave	Leave organisation

---

🔄 Authentication Flow (Mermaid.js)

flowchart TD
    A[User Registers] --> B[Email Confirmation Sent]
    B -->|Clicks Link| C[Email Verified]
    C --> D[Login with Email & Password]
    D --> E[JWT Access Token Issued]
    E --> F[Access Protected Routes]
    F --> G[Token Expired?]
    G -->|Yes| H[Refresh Token Endpoint]
    H --> I[New Access Token]
    G -->|No| F
    F --> J[Logout Request]
    J --> K[Invalidate Tokens]

Loading

---

• IsAuthenticatedMiddleware → Protects sensitive routes
• SchemaValidationMiddleware → Ensures request payloads match schemas
• uploadMiddleware → Handles file uploads with Multer

---

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18+
• npm or yarn
• PostgreSQL

Installation

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/uriel-api.git
cd uriel-api
npm install

Running the App

# Development
npm run dev

# Production
npm start

⚙️ Environment Configuration

Create a .env file with your settings:

PORT=5000
DATABASE_URL=postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/uriel
JWT_SECRET=your_secret_key

📱 Example Usage

Register

POST /auth/register
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "password": "SecurePass123",
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Doe"
}

Login

POST /auth/login
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "password": "SecurePass123"
}

---

🔍 Architecture

src/
├── auth/                   # Auth controllers & logic
├── controllers/            # User & org controllers
├── middlewares/            # Custom middlewares
├── routes/                 # Route definitions
├── schemas/                # JSON schemas for validation
└── app.js                  # App entry point

---

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

---

👨‍💻 Author

Anaele Joshua Chukwuebuka
MSc IT | Backend Developer