GitHub-Explorer

A full-stack web app for discovering and saving GitHub repositories. Browse trending repos, search by keyword, and star your favorites to a personal list — with email/password or Google OAuth login.

Features

• 🔍 Search & Discover — Search GitHub repositories or browse the most popular ones (sorted by stars) via the GitHub Search API
• ⭐ Favorites — Star any repo to save it to your account; unstar to remove it
• 📄 Pagination — Page through search and favorite results
• 🔐 Authentication — Sign up / log in with email and password (hashed with bcrypt), or sign in with Google OAuth 2.0
• 🗄️ Persistent storage — Users and favorites are stored in PostgreSQL, scoped per user

Tech Stack

Backend: Node.js, Express 5, PostgreSQL (pg), Passport.js (local + Google OAuth 2.0), bcrypt, express-session

Frontend: EJS templates, vanilla JavaScript, Bootstrap 5, Font Awesome

External API: GitHub REST API (repository search)

Project Structure

GitHub-Explorer/
├── main.js                # Express app, routes, auth, GitHub API calls
├── db.js                  # PostgreSQL connection + table setup
├── views/
│   ├── home.ejs            # Login page
│   ├── register.ejs        # Sign-up page
│   └── index.ejs           # Repository listing (popular / favorites)
├── public/
│   ├── css/                # Stylesheets
│   ├── js/index.js         # Client-side search, favoriting, navigation
│   └── images/
├── package.json
└── .gitignore

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• PostgreSQL running locally or remotely
• A GitHub personal access token (for higher API rate limits)
• A Google OAuth 2.0 client ID/secret (for Google sign-in)

Setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/Sblackx/GitHub-Explorer.git
   cd GitHub-Explorer

2. Install dependencies

   npm install

3. Create a PostgreSQL database and note its connection details. The app automatically creates the required tables (users, favorite) on first run.

4. Configure environment variables

   Create a .env file in the project root:

   # PostgreSQL
   DB_USER=your_db_user
   DB_HOST=localhost
   DB_DATABASE=your_db_name
   DB_PASSWORD=your_db_password
   DB_PORT=5432
   
   # Session
   SESSION_SECRET=some_long_random_string
   
   # GitHub API
   GITHUB_TOKEN=your_github_personal_access_token
   
   # Google OAuth
   GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=your_google_client_id
   GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=your_google_client_secret

   For Google OAuth, set the authorized redirect URI to http://localhost:3000/auth/google/repository.

5. Run the app

   npx nodemon main.js
   # or
   node main.js

   The app will be available at http://localhost:3000.

Usage

1. Sign up with an email/password, or sign in with Google.
2. Browse Popular repositories or use the search bar to find specific ones.
3. Click the ⭐ icon on any repo card to add or remove it from your Favorites.
4. Use the pagination controls at the bottom to browse more results.
5. Click LogOut to end your session.

API Routes

Method	Route	Description
GET	/	Landing/login page (redirects to /popular if logged in)
GET	/register	Sign-up page
POST	/register	Create a new account
GET	/login	Login page
POST	/login	Authenticate with email/password
GET	/auth/google	Start Google OAuth flow
GET	/auth/google/repository	Google OAuth callback
GET	/logout	End session
GET	/popular	List trending/searched repositories
GET	/favorite	List the logged-in user's favorite repositories
PUT	/favorite/add	Add a repository to favorites
DELETE	/favorite/remove	Remove a repository from favorites