HIRA Registration — MERN
Online short-course registration for HIRA Model School & Sakhakot Academy
(DIT, Web Development, Pharmacy), rebuilt on the MERN stack.
- client/ — React (Vite) frontend. Same UI/design as before.
- server/ — Node + Express REST API, MongoDB (Mongoose), JWT admin auth.
The passport photo is optional and stored as a resized base64 string on the
application document — no paid object storage (no Firebase Blaze, no S3).
Run locally
Prerequisites: Node 18+, and MongoDB (local mongod, or a free MongoDB Atlas cluster).
# 1) Backend
cd server
cp .env.example .env # then edit: MONGODB_URI, JWT_SECRET, ADMIN_* , CORS_ORIGINS
npm install
npm run seed # creates the admin account from ADMIN_USERNAME/ADMIN_PASSWORD
npm run dev # http://localhost:5000
# 2) Frontend (new terminal)
cd client
npm install
npm run dev # http://localhost:5173 (proxies /api to :5000)
Registration form: http://localhost:5173/ · Staff dashboard: http://localhost:5173/admin
Test
cd server && npm test # full REST API test against an in-memory MongoDB
cd client && npm run build # verifies the React app compiles
Environment variables
server/.env — PORT, MONGODB_URI, JWT_SECRET, JWT_EXPIRES_IN,
ADMIN_USERNAME, ADMIN_PASSWORD (used once by npm run seed), CORS_ORIGINS.
client/.env — VITE_API_URL (empty in dev; the backend origin in production).
Deploy (free tiers — do not require any paid service)
- Database: MongoDB Atlas M0 (free). Put its URI in
server/.env → MONGODB_URI.
- Backend: Render / Railway / Cyclic free tier. Set the same env vars there.
- Frontend: Vercel. Set
VITE_API_URL to the deployed backend URL, add the
Vercel domain to the backend's CORS_ORIGINS.
Security
- Admin password is never stored in plain text — only a bcrypt hash, created by
npm run seed from an env var.
- All secrets (DB URI, JWT secret, admin password) live in
server/.env, never
in the frontend or the database.
- Admin-only endpoints require a valid JWT; the public can only create applications.
