MERN Authentication Starter

This is a starter app for a MERN stack application with authentication. This is for a SPA (Single Page Application) workflow that uses the Vite Build tool. This authentication workflow is based off of my MERN Stack From Scratch | eCommerce course.

It includes the following:

• Backend API with Express & MongoDB
• Routes for auth, logout, register, profile, update profile
• JWT authentication stored in HTTP-only cookie
• Protected routes and endpoints
• Custom middleware to check JSON web token and store in cookie
• Custom error middleware
• React frontend to register, login, logout, view profile, and update profile
• React Bootstrap UI library
• React Toastify notifications

Usage

• Create a MongoDB database and obtain your MongoDB URI - MongoDB Atlas
• Create a PayPal account and obtain your Client ID - PayPal Developer

Env Variables

Rename the .env.example file to .env and add the following

NODE_ENV = development
PORT = 5000
MONGO_URI = your mongodb uri
JWT_SECRET = 'abc123'

Change the JWT_SECRET to what you want

Install Dependencies (frontend & backend)

npm install
cd frontend
npm install

Run

# Run frontend (:3000) & backend (:5000)
npm run dev

# Run backend only
npm run server

Build & Deploy

# Create frontend prod build
cd frontend
npm run build