SwiftChat Backend

A production-ready, real-time chat backend built with Go. Powers SwiftChat — a modern messaging platform with friends, rooms, file sharing and live presence.

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Overview

SwiftChat Backend is a real-time messaging service written in Go using the Gin HTTP framework and Socket.IO for bi-directional communication. It exposes a clean REST API for resource management and a WebSocket layer for live events such as messaging, presence and friend updates.

The codebase follows a layered architecture (controller → service → repository) with dependency injection, making it easy to test, extend and reason about.

Features

• Real-time messaging over Socket.IO with room-based broadcasting
• Authentication via Google OAuth 2.0 and email/password sign-up
• Session management backed by Redis with secure HTTP-only cookies
• Friends system — send / accept / reject requests, block & unblock users
• Chat rooms with persisted message history
• File uploads to Amazon S3 (profile photos and attachments)
• Transactional emails powered by Resend with HTML templates
• Containerized deployment with Docker Compose (API + Postgres + Redis)
• CI pipeline with GitHub Actions

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Go 1.23+
HTTP Framework	Gin
Real-time	Socket.IO (Go)
Database	PostgreSQL 17 + GORM
Cache / Sessions	Redis
Object Storage	Amazon S3 (AWS SDK v2)
Auth	Google OAuth 2.0, JWT, Sessions
Email	Resend
Containerization	Docker & Docker Compose

Architecture

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose
• (Optional, for local dev without Docker) Go 1.23+, PostgreSQL 17, Redis

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/kwa0x2/SwiftChat-Backend.git
cd SwiftChat-Backend

2. Configure environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

# Server
PORT=9000
GIN_MODE=release

# PostgreSQL
POSTGRE_DB=swiftchat
POSTGRE_USER=postgres
POSTGRE_PASSWORD=your_strong_password
POSTGRE_HOST=swiftchat_postgres
POSTGRE_PORT=5432

# Redis
REDIS_HOST=swiftchat_redis:6379
REDIS_PASSWORD=your_redis_password

# Session & JWT
SESSION_SECRET=your_session_secret
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

# Google OAuth
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=your_google_client_id
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=your_google_client_secret
GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URL=http://localhost:9000/api/v1/auth/login/google/callback

# AWS S3
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_aws_key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_aws_secret
AWS_REGION=eu-central-1
AWS_BUCKET_NAME=swiftchat-bucket

# Resend (email)
RESEND_API_KEY=your_resend_api_key

3. Run with Docker Compose

docker compose up -d --build

The API will be available at http://localhost:9000.

4. (Optional) Run locally without Docker

go mod download
make run

API Reference

All endpoints are prefixed with /api/v1.

Auth

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/auth/login/google	Initiate Google OAuth flow
GET	/auth/login/google/callback	Google OAuth callback
POST	/auth/signup	Sign up with email/password
POST	/auth/logout	Log out current session
GET	/auth/status	Check current auth state

Users

Method	Endpoint	Description
PATCH	/user/username	Update username
PATCH	/user/profile-photo	Upload / update avatar

Friends

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/friends	List all friends
GET	/friends/blocked	List blocked users
PATCH	/friends/block	Block a user
DELETE	/friends	Remove a friend

Friend Requests

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/friend-requests	Send a friend request
GET	/friend-requests	List incoming requests
PATCH	/friend-requests	Accept / reject a request

Rooms

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/rooms/check	Get or create a chat room
GET	/rooms/chat-list	Fetch the user's chat list

Messages

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/messages/history	Get chat history

Files

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/files/upload	Upload a file

Real-time (Socket.IO)

Connect to ws://localhost:9000/socket.io/ with an authenticated session cookie. The server emits events for new messages, friend updates, presence changes and more.

Project Structure

SwiftChat-Backend/
├── config/            # App configuration & environment loading
├── controller/        # HTTP handlers (Gin)
├── email_templates/   # HTML templates for transactional emails
├── internal/          # Internal packages (not exported)
├── middlewares/       # Auth, session and CORS middleware
├── models/            # GORM models (User, Room, Message, …)
├── repository/        # Database access layer
├── routes/            # Route registration
├── service/           # Business logic
├── socket/            # Socket.IO setup and event handlers
├── sql/               # Database init scripts
├── types/             # Shared types & DTOs
├── utils/             # Helpers (hashing, validation, …)
├── compose.yaml       # Docker Compose definition
├── Dockerfile         # API container image
└── main.go            # Application entrypoint

Development

Common tasks are wrapped in the included Makefile:

make run        # run the API locally with hot reload (requires air)
make compile    # build a Windows binary into bin/
make compose    # start the full stack with Docker Compose

Related Repositories

• SwiftChat Frontend — Next.js client

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.