Project name

AI Invoice Generator

Table of contents

• Tech stack
• Prerequisites
• Environment configuration
• Setup & Run (Development)
  • API
  • Client
• Build & Run (Production)
• API Endpoints (overview)
• Database migrations & data shape notes
• Testing & linting
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing

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Tech stack

• Backend: Node.js, Express, MongoDB (Mongoose)
• Frontend: React (Vite), TailwindCSS
• Auth: JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
• AI: Google GenAI client (optional - used for invoice extraction/AI-assisted features)

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18+ (recommended)
• npm (or yarn)
• MongoDB (local, Docker, or a cloud provider like MongoDB Atlas)

Environment configuration

You need to create .env files for the API (and optionally the client if you want environment-specific behavior).

API (api/.env)

Create a file at api/.env with the following variables:

PORT=5000
MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/invoice-generator
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret_here
GOOGLE_API_KEY=optional_google_genai_key

• PORT — port to run the API on (default 5000)
• MONGO_URI — your MongoDB connection string
• JWT_SECRET — secret used to sign JWT tokens for auth
• GOOGLE_API_KEY — optional key for AI features

Client (client/.env)

Vite exposes env variables prefixed with VITE_. Create client/.env for local dev if you want to point the frontend to a non-default API host.

VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5000/api

If you don't set this, the client uses relative paths configured in src/utils/axiosInstance.js.

Setup & Run (Development)

From the repository root run the backend and the frontend in separate terminals.

API

cd api
npm install
npm run dev

• npm run dev starts the server with nodemon for hot reload.

Client

cd client
npm install
npm run dev

• Open the URL Vite prints (usually http://localhost:5173) to view the app.

Build & Run (Production)

Build the client and serve it with a static server, or host separately.

Build client

cd client
npm run build

Start API in production

cd api
npm install --production
npm start

The production flow depends on your hosting choice. You can also serve the client build from the API server by adding a static middleware — not included by default.

API Endpoints (overview)

• POST /api/auth/register — register new user
• POST /api/auth/login — login and get JWT
• GET /api/invoices — list user's invoices
• POST /api/invoices — create invoice
• GET /api/invoices/:id — get invoice by ID
• PATCH /api/invoices/:id — update invoice
• DELETE /api/invoices/:id — delete invoice

Check api/src/controllers and api/src/routes for the exact implementations and request/response bodies.

Troubleshooting

• If the client can't reach the API, verify VITE_API_BASE_URL or axios instance base url.
• If JWT errors occur, ensure JWT_SECRET in .env matches and that tokens are sent in the Authorization: Bearer <token> header.
• If items are not returned, verify the API's Invoice model has items defined as an array (see api/src/models/invoice.model.js).

Contributing

• Fork the repo, create a branch, open a PR with clear changes and tests.

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