VoAr

VoAr is a backend web application written in Go that demonstrates modern backend engineering practices, including layered architecture, PostgreSQL integration, Redis Cache-Aside caching, request lifecycle management, structured logging, and graceful shutdown.

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Features

• User registration and authentication
• Session-based authorization
• User profiles
• Post publishing
• Comment system
• Notification system
• Server-side HTML rendering
• Redis Cache-Aside caching
• Structured logging
• Context propagation
• Graceful shutdown
• Database migrations

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Architecture

HTTP Request
        │
        ▼
 Middleware
        │
        ▼
   Handlers
        │
        ▼
   Services
   ├── Cache
   └── Repository
            │
            ▼
      PostgreSQL

Redis is integrated using the Cache-Aside pattern with automatic fallback to a NoOp cache implementation when Redis is unavailable.

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Tech Stack

Backend

• Go
• PostgreSQL
• Redis

Infrastructure

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• golang-migrate

Libraries

• gorilla/mux
• gorilla/sessions
• bcrypt
• lib/pq
• go-redis/v9

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Project Structure

cmd/
└── voar/

db/
└── migrations/

internal/
├── cache/
├── contextkeys/
├── database/
├── handler/
├── logger/
├── middleware/
├── models/
├── repository/
└── service/

pkg/
└── google/

web/
├── css/
└── templates/

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Database

Current schema:

• users
• posts
• comments
• notifications

Relationships:

User
├── Posts
├── Comments
└── Notifications

Post
└── Comments

Database schema is managed through versioned SQL migrations.

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Running Locally

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ArsenVoar/VoAr.git
cd VoAr

2. Configure environment

Create a .env file:

SESSION_SECRET=your_secret

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_USER=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
DB_NAME=voar

3. Start PostgreSQL and Redis

Either run them manually or with Docker.

4. Apply database migrations

migrate -path db/migrations -database "postgres://postgres:your_password@localhost:5432/voar?sslmode=disable" up

5. Run the application

go run ./cmd/voar

Application:

http://localhost:8080

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Docker

Build and start all services:

docker compose up --build

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Testing

Run tests:

go test ./...

Run static analysis:

go vet ./...

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Backend Concepts Demonstrated

• Layered architecture
• Dependency Injection
• Repository pattern
• Middleware composition
• Context propagation
• Structured logging
• Graceful shutdown
• Database transactions
• Redis Cache-Aside
• Session-based authentication
• Request lifecycle management