KillrVideo v2 - Java Spring Boot Backend

Date: June 2025

A reference backend for the KillrVideo sample application rebuilt for 2025 using Java, Spring Boot and DataStax Astra DB.

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Overview

This repo demonstrates modern API best-practices with:

• Spring Boot for typed request/response models
• Role-based JWT auth
• Restful Cassandra (Astra DB) Data API client via astra-db-java
• Micro-service friendly layout – or run everything as a monolith

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Prerequisites

1. Java 21+ (use jenv or sdkman)
2. Maven for dependency management:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.datastax.astra</groupId>
    <artifactId>astra-db-java</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
</dependency>

3. A DataStax Astra DB serverless database – grab a free account.
4. Docker or Podman (optional) if you want to run the individual services in containers.

Setup & Configuration

### clone
git clone git@github.com:KillrVideo/killrvideo-java-2025.git
cd killrvideo-java-2025

### build and install deps
mvn clean package

Database collections:

1. Create a new keyspace named killrvideo_dataapi.
2. Create the following non-vector-enabled collections:

• comments
• content_moderation
• users
• ratings
• video_ratings

3. Create the following vector-enabled collection:

• videos (with a 384-dimensional vector)

Load data:

1. AstraDB - KillrVideo collections loader
2. OpenSearch - CSV-to-OpenSearch project

Environment variables (via export):

Variable	Description
ASTRA_DB_API_ENDPOINT	REST endpoint for your Astra DB instance
ASTRA_DB_APPLICATION_TOKEN	Token created in Astra UI
ASTRA_DB_NAMESPACE	killrvideo_dataapi
YOUTUBE_API_KEY	A YouTube API key, used for grabbing new video metadata.
`HF_API_KEY	A HuggingFace API key, used for generating embeddings without getting rate-limited...probably.
OPENSEARCH_HOST	IP or hostname for your OpenSearch instance. Assumes https.
OPENSEARCH_PORT	Port for your OpenSearch instance. Defaults to 9200 if null.
OPENSEARCH_USERNAME	Username for your OpenSearch instance.
OPENSEARCH_PASSWORD	Password for your OpenSearch instance.

Edit application.yml:

• Generate and change the killrvideo.jwt.secret key (or use the default).
• Generate your own keystore for your self-signed TLS certificate.

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Running the Application

java -jar target/killrvideo-java-service-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar --logging.level.com.killrvideo=DEBUG --logging.level.org.springframework.security=DEBUG

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Building & Running with Docker or Podman

docker build -t killrvideo-2025-java .
docker run -p 8443:8443 -e ASTRA_DB_NAMESPACE=killrvideo_dataapi -e ASTRA_DB_APPLICATION_TOKEN=your_token -e ASTRA_DB_API_ENDPOINT=your_endpoint killrvideo-2025-java

Or

podman build -t killrvideo-2025-java .
podman run -p 8443:8443 -e ASTRA_DB_NAMESPACE=killrvideo_dataapi -e ASTRA_DB_APPLICATION_TOKEN=your_token -e ASTRA_DB_API_ENDPOINT=your_endpoint killrvideo-2025-java