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2025Full Stack Developer (Solo)Live

Article Hub

A multi-role publishing platform with RBAC, JWT auth, and a full CRUD editorial workflow.

Live demoSource code
PERN
Stack
3 Types
Roles
Full Stack
Type

Problem

Most simple blog or CMS builds handle a single admin user. Article Hub needed to support writers, editors, and admins with genuinely different permissions and workflows, on a stack that could scale beyond a toy project while staying maintainable as a solo-built, production-facing app.

Approach

  • Modeled roles (writer, editor, admin) at the database and API layer, not just in the UI, so permission checks couldn't be bypassed by hitting endpoints directly.
  • Built a REST API in Express with JWT-based authentication and role-aware middleware guarding each route.
  • Used PostgreSQL with a normalized schema for articles, users, and roles to keep data integrity as the feature set grew.
  • Designed a responsive React frontend so the same editorial interface works for writers on mobile and editors on desktop.

Key decisions

Role-based access at the API layer

Permission checks live in middleware, not component logic, so the same rule protects every client that talks to the API, not just the current UI.

PostgreSQL over a document store

Articles, authors, and roles are inherently relational; PostgreSQL's constraints and joins fit this workflow better than schemaless storage.

JWT over session cookies

Kept the API stateless and easy to scale horizontally without a shared session store.

Tech stack

ReactNode.jsExpress.jsPostgreSQLTailwind CSS

Outcomes

  • Deployed and live at articlehub.me
  • Full CRUD editorial workflow across three distinct roles
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