🌐 AroundUs: Community App Service

AroundUs is a modern, scalable community-based application platform built using Microservices Architecture (MSA). It connects users through local and interest-based communities, providing features such as location discovery, social networking, real-time chat, recommendations, and more.

📱 Project Overview

• React Native Mobile App – Cross-platform mobile frontend for iOS and Android.
• Node.js Express Microservices – A set of backend services managing distinct domains such as user profiles, posts, friends, notifications, and more.
• Dockerized Services – Each backend service is containerized for independent deployment and scaling.
• GitHub Actions CI/CD – Continuous Integration & Deployment workflows for both frontend and backend.
• Cloud-Ready – Designed to be deployed in Kubernetes or cloud environments with scalability and fault tolerance in mind.

🧩 Features & Service Domains

🟢 Community

• Share Posts & Things
• Search & Filter
• Meet-up, Topics, and Trends
• Open Community System

🔵 User Profile

• Avatar & Bio
• Personal Information
• Profile Sharing

🟣 Friends

• Friend List & Interactions
• Chat & Video Chat
• Shared Rights

🟡 Notifications

• Real-time alerts for events, friends, community news, and system events
• AI-Driven Suggestions

🟠 App Information

• Compliance, Contact, Legal
• Guides & Support

🧠 Categories & Community Topics

AroundUs supports a wide variety of interest-based communities such as:

• 🏘️ Local & Neighborhood
• 🍽️ Food & Drink
• 🎮 Hobbies & Interests
• 💪 Health & Wellness
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social & Meetups
• 🐶 Pets & Animals
• 🎓 Learning & Growth
• 💼 Buy, Sell & Trade
• 🌱 Eco & Sustainability

🏗️ System Architecture

AroundUs is built using a container-based microservices design:

• API Gateway – Unified entry point for clients
• Multiple App Servers – Dedicated Node.js microservices
• Independent Databases per Service – MongoDB, MySQL, Redis, Kafka
• CI/CD via GitHub Actions
• Optional Public APIs for 3rd-party integrations

📁 Project Structure

├── mobile-app/        # React Native frontend (iOS & Android)
├── services/          # Microservice backend components
├── README.md          # Root README

🧩 Microservices Breakdown

• ai-service/: Provides recommendation and personalization logic.
• analytics-service/: Tracks user activity and system metrics.
• auth-service/: Handles authentication, JWT tokens, and OAuth2.
• chat-service/: Manages chat rooms, real-time messaging, and video calls.
• feed-service/: Responsible for social feed generation and filtering.
• post-service/: Manages for user post creating, modifying, deleteing and filtering.
• info-service/: Stores app-wide metadata, guides, and legal info.
• notification-service/: Sends push, email, and in-app notifications.
• search-service/: Search engine for users, posts, tags, and local content.
• user-service/: Manages user profiles, avatars, and user settings.
• web-service/: Handles web dashboard or admin views if applicable.

📱 Mobile App Structure (React Native + Expo)

mobile-app/
├── components/     # Reusable UI components
├── constants/      # App-wide constant values
├── hooks/          # Custom React hooks
├── scripts/        # Build or deployment-related scripts
├── proxy-*.js      # Local dev proxy for backend
├── app.json        # Expo config
├── tsconfig.json   # TypeScript settings
├── server.crt/key  # Local SSL certificates

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Frontend: React Native, Expo, TypeScript
• Backend: Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka
• DevOps: Docker, Docker Compose, GitHub Actions
• Cloud Ready: K8s, AWS S3, Load Balancer, API Gateway

🚀 Getting Started

Each microservice lives under the services/ directory and includes:

• Dockerfile
• package.json
• src/ directory

Run Locally (with Docker Compose)

docker-compose up --build

Backend

cd services/
docker-compose up --build

Mobile App

cd mobile-app/
npm install
npx expo start