Neighborly

Neighborly is a hyper‑local community hub that brings neighbors together through verified residency. The platform empowers residents to share posts, lend & borrow tools, exchange services, organize & RSVP to events, and create or sign community petitions—all within a secure, address‑verified environment.

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Key Features

• User Authentication & Residency Verification
  Secure sign‑up and login with proof‑of‑address upload, staff review, and JWT‑backed sessions.

• Geo‑Filtered Bulletin Board
  Browse and post neighborhood updates filtered by ZIP, radius, and tags.

• Tool Sharing Marketplace
  List, request, lend, and return tools with real‑time status and usage history.

• Service Exchange Platform
  Offer and request local services, with built‑in request & fulfillment flows.

• Community Events Calendar
  Create, RSVP, modify, and cancel events. Interactive map picker for location selection.

• Petitions & Civic Engagement
  Launch petitions, track signature counts, and sign/un‑sign from personal dashboards.

• Personal Dashboards

  • My Creations: All posts, events, services, petitions you’ve created.
  • My Activity: All posts, RSVPs, sign‑ups, and petition signatures you’ve joined.

• Media Handling
  Secure image uploads via S3 presigned URLs & CloudFront CDN for fast, reliable delivery.

• Search & Filtering
  Keyword, tag, and location radii filters powered by an integrated Mapbox/Leaflet picker.

• Responsive & Accessible UI
  Built with React & MUI for desktop, tablet, and mobile; WCAG‑informed components.

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Architecture & Tech Stack

• Frontend

  • React 18
  • Material‑UI (MUI v5)
  • Redux Toolkit & Axios
  • Mapbox GL JS / Leaflet for maps
  • Jest + React Testing Library + (planned) Cypress

• Backend

  • Python 3.11 & Django 4
  • Django REST Framework (DRF) & DRF‑Spectacular (OpenAPI)
  • SimpleJWT for token auth
  • PostgreSQL on AWS RDS (SQLite for local dev)

• Media & CDN

  • AWS S3 for file storage
  • CloudFront for global distribution

• Infrastructure & CI/CD

  • AWS EC2 + Nginx + Gunicorn
  • GitHub Actions (build, tests, migrations, deploy)
  • Docker‑Compose & GitHub Codespaces for dev environments

• Observability (Roadmap)

  • AWS CloudWatch (metrics & alarms)
  • k6 load‑testing scripts
  • Sentry for front‑end error tracking

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Installation & Local Setup

Prerequisites

• Git
• Python 3.9+
• Node.js 14+ & npm

Clone & Configure

git clone https://github.com/theadityamittal/Neighborly.git
cd Neighborly

Backend

1. Create & activate a Python virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate   # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

2. Install dependencies and apply migrations:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   python manage.py migrate

3. Create a .env file (see .env.example) and set:

   ACCESS_KEY=your_aws_access_key_here
   SECRET_KEY=your_aws_secret_key_here
   BUCKET_NAME=your_bucket_name_here
   REGION_NAME=your_aws_region_here
   MAPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_mapbox_token_here
   

4. Load the DB with dummies

   python manage.py dev_setup

5. Run the backend:

   python manage.py migrate
   python manage.py runserver

Frontend

1. Navigate to the React app:

   cd react-app

2. Install & configure:

   npm install
   cp .env.example .env.local
   # Update REACT_APP_BACKEND_URL as needed

3. Start the frontend:

   npm start

4. Open your browser at http://localhost:3000.

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Testing

• Backend Unit & API Tests

  python manage.py test

• Frontend Unit Tests

  cd react-app
  npm test -- --watchAll=false

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Deployment

The deploy workflow in GitHub Actions builds and pushes Docker images, migrates the database, and updates the EC2 fleet via SSH/GitHub Deployments. Configuration is defined in:

• .github/workflows/deploy.yml

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API Documentation

Interactive API docs are available at:

GET /api_doc/

Powered by DRF‑Spectacular (OpenAPI / Swagger UI).

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🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repo and create a feature branch.
2. Develop against the latest main.
3. Ensure all tests pass locally.
4. Submit a Pull Request with clear descriptions and linked issues.
5. Maintainers will review and merge after CI checks succeed.

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📜 License

This project is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Fixture credentials

With each of the user fixtures loaded from the previous step dev_setup the default password for the user account is password123 for basic resident accounts.

NGO accounts have the password 123456 for simplicity.

To make a custom admin account, use python3 manage.py createsuperuser. After you make that account, you can immediately login without verificaiton as well!

Feel to use these accounts to look at the website! Or checkout the live site here: http://3.145.158.84/