🚀 CAIA System Design Knowledge Base

🔗 Important Links

• 🌐 Live Project: Coming Soon
• 💻 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/devisingh2007/caia_system_design_devisingh_rajput
• postman url : https://devisingh-rajput.docs.buildwithfern.com/caia-backend-api/introduction
• 📂 Dataset (Google Drive): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1um-ZWp-i2SnDgYC1kOV2BOPcYhzInejV/view?usp=sharing
• 📘 Assignment Repo: https://github.com/codinggita/CGxSU_Semester_1/tree/main/assignments/05.sem2_full_stack_80_Marks_Project_02

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📌 Project Overview

CAIA System Design Knowledge Base is a full-stack application designed to provide a centralized platform for learning, exploring, and analyzing system design concepts.

The system is built using a real-world dataset of system design prompts and detailed responses, enabling users to search, filter, and interact with high-quality architecture knowledge in a structured way.

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🎯 Objectives

• Build a scalable RESTful API system
• Design schema based on real dataset structure
• Implement advanced search & filtering
• Provide analytics & trending insights
• Enable user personalization (bookmarks, notes)
• Follow clean architecture & PR practices

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❓ Problem Statement

System design preparation is often scattered across multiple platforms with:

• ❌ No centralized knowledge base
• ❌ Poor search and filtering
• ❌ No structured categorization
• ❌ No tracking of important concepts

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💡 Solution

This project solves the problem by creating a structured knowledge base system where users can:

• Browse system design prompts
• Read detailed explanations
• Filter by category, concept, and type
• Search across prompts and responses
• Track trending and popular topics
• Bookmark and save important content

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🧠 Dataset Structure

The application is built on a structured JSON dataset:

{
  "prompt": "System design question",
  "response": "Detailed explanation",
  "metadata": {
    "category": "Foundations",
    "subcategory": "Scalability",
    "concept": "Horizontal vs vertical scaling",
    "question_type": "design",
    "generated_at": "2025-08-20T17:49:57.932316"
  }
}

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🗄️ Database Schema Design

The schema is designed directly based on dataset analysis:

{
  prompt: String,
  response: String,
  metadata: {
    category: String,
    subcategory: String,
    concept: String,
    question_type: String,
    generated_at: Date
  },
  views: Number,
  bookmarks: Number,
  isArchived: Boolean
}

✅ Key Design Decisions

• Used prompt instead of title
• Stored full explanation in response
• Nested metadata for structured filtering
• Added views, bookmarks for analytics
• Used indexing for fast search

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🏗️ System Architecture

The project follows a modular layered architecture:

• Frontend (React) → UI & user interaction
• Backend (Express) → API handling
• Database (MongoDB) → Data storage
• Middleware Layer → Auth, logging, validation

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✨ Features

🔹 Core Features

• CRUD operations for concepts
• Advanced search (prompt, response)
• Filtering (category, concept, question type)
• Pagination & sorting

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🔹 User Features

• Authentication (JWT)
• Bookmark concepts
• Add personal notes
• Vote on concepts

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🔹 Analytics

• Trending concepts
• Most viewed topics
• Category distribution

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🔹 Advanced Features

• Related concepts
• Daily system design challenges
• Personalized recommendations

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⚙️ API Overview

📌 Concepts

• GET /api/v1/concepts
• GET /api/v1/concepts/:id
• POST /api/v1/concepts
• DELETE /api/v1/concepts/:id

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🔍 Search

• GET /api/v1/search?q=keyword
• GET /api/v1/search/title?q=keyword

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📊 Analytics

• GET /api/v1/analytics/trending
• GET /api/v1/analytics/views/top

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🔐 Authentication

• POST /api/v1/auth/register
• POST /api/v1/auth/login

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🛠️ Tech Stack

🔧 Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB (Mongoose)

🎨 Frontend

• React.js
• Tailwind CSS

🔐 Authentication

• JWT (JSON Web Tokens)

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📂 Project Structure

caia_system_design/
│
├── backend/
│  ├── index.js                    # Entry point (loads src/app.js)
├── src/
│   ├── app.js                  # Express app setup & middleware
│   ├── config/                 # Configuration files (db.js, env.js)
│   ├── controllers/            # Route handlers for each feature
│   ├── middlewares/            # Custom middleware (auth, error handling, logging)
│   ├── models/                 # Mongoose schemas (User, Concept, Note, etc.)
│   ├── routes/                 # API route definitions
│   ├── scripts/                # Utility scripts (seed.js, etc.)
│   └── utils/                  # Helper functions (response, pagination, etc.)
├── package.json
├── .env                        # Environment variables (create from .env.example)
└── README.md

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🚀 Getting Started

1️⃣ Clone Repository

git clone whttps://github.com/mann2007-ptl/caia_system_design_mann_patel.git

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2️⃣ Install Dependencies

cd backend
npm install

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3️⃣ Setup Environment Variables

Create .env file:

PORT=5000
MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_uri
JWT_SECRET=your_secret_key

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4️⃣ Run Server

npm run dev

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📥 Data Import Strategy

The dataset is imported using:

• insertMany() for bulk insertion
• JSON parsing and transformation
• Metadata mapping to schema

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🧪 Testing

• API testing using Postman
• CRUD validation
• Search & filter testing
• Error handling verification

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📈 Performance Optimizations

• Indexed fields for fast search
• Pagination for large datasets
• Optimized MongoDB queries
• Efficient filtering logic

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⚠️ Challenges Faced

• Mapping complex dataset to schema
• Designing scalable API structure
• Implementing efficient search queries
• Handling nested metadata filtering

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🔮 Future Improvements

• AI-based summarization
• Voice search
• Graph-based concept visualization
• Recommendation engine

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🤝 Contribution

This project is part of an academic assignment. External contributions are not open.

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📜 License

Educational use only.

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👨‍💻 Author

Your Name GitHub: https://github.com/devisingh2007

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⭐ Acknowledgment

This project is developed as part of the CGxSU Full Stack Assignment to demonstrate real-world system design and backend architecture skills.