Zust — Social Media App

Zust is a full-featured social media web application built with ASP.NET Core MVC. Users can create profiles, share posts (text, images and video), like and comment, send and accept friend requests, chat in real time, and receive live notifications.

Originally built on .NET 6 + SQL Server, Zust has been modernized to run on .NET 10 with PostgreSQL (Neon) and is deployable to Render via Docker.

▶️ Watch the showcase video

---

Table of Contents

• Features
• Tech Stack
• Architecture
• Local Development
• Neon Setup
• Render Deployment
• Environment Variables
• Demo Data
• Screenshots
• License

---

Features

• 🔐 Authentication & profiles — registration, login and rich user profiles (ASP.NET Core Identity).
• 📝 Posts — create text/image/video posts with media hosted on Cloudinary.
• ❤️ Likes & comments — engage with posts.
• 👥 Friendships — send, accept and manage friend requests.
• 💬 Real-time chat — one-to-one messaging powered by SignalR.
• 🔔 Live notifications — instant updates via SignalR.
• 📰 News feed — posts, videos and suggestions.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Runtime	.NET 10 (ASP.NET Core MVC + Razor views)
Real-time	SignalR
Auth	ASP.NET Core Identity (cookie-based)
Data	Entity Framework Core 10 (Code First)
Database	PostgreSQL (Neon)
Media	Cloudinary
Mapping	AutoMapper
Hosting	Render (Docker)

Architecture

Zust is a single, server-rendered ASP.NET Core application organized in layers (no separate frontend — the UI is rendered with Razor, so there is no need for a Vercel/Next.js frontend):

Zust.sln
├── Zust.Web          → ASP.NET Core MVC app: controllers, Razor views, SignalR hubs, DI/startup (Program.cs)
├── Zust.Business     → application/service layer (business logic)
├── Zust.DataAccess   → EF Core DbContext, repositories, migrations helpers, seeding
├── Zust.Core         → cross-cutting abstractions
└── Zust.Entities     → domain models (User, Post, Comment, Like, Friendship, Chat, Message, Notification, …)

Request flow: Browser → MVC controllers / API controllers → Business services → DataAccess (EF Core) → PostgreSQL. Real-time features go Browser ⇄ SignalR UserHub.

Local Development

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• A Neon (or any PostgreSQL 14+) connection string — see below
• (Optional) A Cloudinary account for media uploads

Steps

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/aykhan019/zust
cd zust

# 2. Configure local secrets (kept out of git)
cp Zust/appsettings.Development.json.example Zust/appsettings.Development.json
#   then edit Zust/appsettings.Development.json with your local Postgres + Cloudinary values

# 3. Restore & build
dotnet restore
dotnet build

# 4. Apply migrations to your local database
dotnet ef database update --project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj --startup-project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj

# 5. Run
dotnet run --project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj

The app reads its connection string from ConnectionStrings:Default (or a DATABASE_URL URI). In Development this comes from appsettings.Development.json; in Production from environment variables.

Tip: Prefer not to keep a connection string in a file? Use user secrets instead:

dotnet user-secrets init --project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj
dotnet user-secrets set "ConnectionStrings:Default" "Host=localhost;Port=5432;Database=zust;Username=postgres;Password=postgres" --project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj

Neon Setup

1. Create a project at neon.tech (pick a region near your Render region).

2. In the project dashboard open Connection Details and enable Pooled connection — the host will contain -pooler. Use the pooled host: Render's free tier is IPv4-only and the pooler is the reliable choice.

3. Build an Npgsql connection string (SSL is required by Neon):

   Host=ep-<id>-pooler.<region>.aws.neon.tech;Port=5432;Database=<db>;Username=<user>;Password=<your-password>;SSL Mode=Require;Trust Server Certificate=true
   

   This is the value you set as ConnectionStrings__Default (and the same value goes in Zust/appsettings.Development.json for local dev, since local and host share one Neon database). Alternatively, Zust also accepts a DATABASE_URL in postgresql://user:pass@host/db?sslmode=require URI form and converts it automatically, forcing SSL.

4. Apply migrations against Neon:

   ConnectionStrings__Default="Host=ep-<id>-pooler.<region>.aws.neon.tech;Port=5432;Database=<db>;Username=<user>;Password=<password>;SSL Mode=Require;Trust Server Certificate=true" \
     dotnet ef database update --project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj --startup-project Zust/Zust.Web.csproj

   Migrations are also applied automatically on app startup, so this step is optional if you deploy straight to Render.

Render Deployment

Zust deploys to Render as a Docker web service. A render.yaml blueprint is included.

Option A — Blueprint (recommended):

1. Push this repo to GitHub.
2. In Render, New → Blueprint, point it at the repo. Render reads render.yaml.
3. Fill in the environment variables marked sync: false (see below) in the dashboard.
4. Deploy. Render builds the Dockerfile, injects PORT, and the app binds Kestrel to it.

Option B — Manual:

1. New → Web Service, connect the repo, choose Docker runtime.
2. Set Health Check Path to /home/index.
3. Add the environment variables below.

The app listens on Render's PORT, honors X-Forwarded-* headers (correct HTTPS/cookies behind Render's proxy), serves static files and runs SignalR over the same origin. EF Core migrations run automatically on startup.

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT	✅	Production on Render, Development locally.
ConnectionStrings__Default	✅	Npgsql connection string for Neon PostgreSQL (see Neon Setup).
AppSettings__Token	✅	App token/secret used for token signing. Use a long random value.
CloudinarySettings__CloudName	✅*	Cloudinary cloud name (*required for media uploads).
CloudinarySettings__ApiKey	✅*	Cloudinary API key.
CloudinarySettings__ApiSecret	✅*	Cloudinary API secret.
DATABASE_URL	⬜	Alternative to ConnectionStrings__Default; a postgresql://… URI.
ALLOWED_ORIGINS	⬜	Comma-separated extra CORS origins (only needed if you add an external SPA).
SEED_DEMO_DATA	⬜	Set to true once to seed demo users/posts, then remove.

Locally these live in Zust/appsettings.Development.json (git-ignored). Never commit real secrets — appsettings.json ships with empty placeholders only.

Demo Data

To present the app publicly with content, set SEED_DEMO_DATA=true for one run. On startup, after migrations, Zust seeds a handful of demo users and posts (idempotent — it only inserts when the tables are empty).

Demo accounts use the password Demo@1234 (e.g. aladdin@zust.demo, maya@zust.demo, liam@zust.demo, sofia@zust.demo). Remove SEED_DEMO_DATA after the first successful run.

License

Zust is released under the MIT License.