🌌 Celestial Gatherings

Celestial Gatherings is a space-themed event management platform that makes it easy to create, share, and join events under the stars. Built with Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB Atlas, and EJS, it follows the MVC pattern and provides a smooth, secure experience for both event hosts and guests.

The app combines robust backend functionality with a clean, responsive UI/UX, giving users everything they need to plan astronomy meetups, science talks, watch parties, or any gathering that feels out of this world.

Want to explore the full workflow? Create a temporary account on the live demo, then try hosting, editing, deleting, and RSVPing to events.

🔗 Live Demo: celestialgatherings.com

📌 The live demo restores its seeded events and clears user-created events and RSVPs daily.

✨ Core Functionality

Event Management
Create, edit, and manage events with full CRUD capabilities. Each event includes title, category, location, description, UTC start/end times, and an optional image. Demo accounts can host up to 10 events at once.
RSVP System
Registered users can RSVP YES / NO / MAYBE. Hosts are prevented from RSVPing to their own events to keep data clean and meaningful.
Authentication & Profiles
Secure sign-up and login with session-based auth. Logged-in users can view their profile, hosted events, and RSVPs.
Image Hosting
Upload event images via Cloudinary using Multer's in-memory upload handling. Files are restricted by type and size, replaced/deleted assets are cleaned up automatically, and a placeholder can be used when no image is selected.
Reliable Data Updates
MongoDB transactions keep event ownership, RSVP references, and related records synchronized during multi-document operations.
Daily Demo Reset
With RESET_MODE=full, a protected Vercel cron job scheduled daily at 06:00 UTC restores the canonical seeded events, removes demo-created events and RSVPs, repairs user references, and cleans up associated Cloudinary images. Registered user accounts are preserved.
User Feedback
Flash messages and custom error pages provide clear guidance for success, warning, and error states.
Responsive UI/UX
Space-inspired theme with accessible forms, visible focus states, and navigation that adapts to login state.

🛠️ Tech Stack

Frontend: EJS templates, Bootstrap 4/5 on selected pages, custom CSS and client-side JavaScript
Backend: Node.js, Express.js
Database: MongoDB Atlas with Mongoose
Authentication: express-session + connect-mongo session storage
File Uploads: Multer memory storage + Cloudinary upload streams
Validation & Security: express-validator, validator, Helmet, express-rate-limit, bcryptjs, same-origin mutation checks
Performance & Logging: compression, morgan
Utilities: Luxon (date/time), he (HTML entity decoding)

🔐 Authentication & Authorization

Guests can:
- Browse events
Registered Users can:
- Sign up / log in securely
- RSVP to events
- Host new events
- Edit or delete events they created
- View RSVPs on their profile and update their RSVP status from an event page
Authorization middleware ensures only event hosts can modify their own events.

🧑‍🎨 UI/UX

Space-inspired theme with deep blues, purples, and cosmic accents
Accessible forms with visible focus states, proper input validation, and keyboard-friendly navigation
Dynamic header navigation: changes based on login state (Sign Up/Login vs. Profile/New Event/Logout)
Custom error views: informative 400, 403, 404, 429, and 500 pages
Responsive layouts: looks great on desktop, tablet, and mobile

🧩 Design System

Shared style variables in one place (colors, spacing, corners, shadows, type)
Consistent hover/active/focus states across main nav and account links
Responsive type scales, consistent spacing, and a sticky-footer layout

♿ Accessibility

Keyboard-friendly navigation with visible focus styles and skip links on every page
Semantic landmarks, time elements, descriptive labels, and meaningful heading structure
Form errors use alert/status semantics, labels are associated with inputs, and dynamic RSVP counts are announced
Large, readable text and strong color contrast designed with WCAG AA considerations
Respects "Reduce Motion" preference

🧪 Validation & Error Handling

Uses express-validator to validate/sanitize form input
Passwords are hashed securely with bcryptjs before storage
Login and signup requests are rate limited, and successful login regenerates the session identifier
Each account can host up to 10 events at once; creation is limited to 10 requests per hour and editing to 30 requests per hour
State-changing requests require a matching Origin or Referer to reduce cross-site request forgery risk
Uploaded images are limited to supported image types and a maximum size of 2 MB
Friendly error pages for:
- Invalid IDs
- Forbidden access
- Missing resources
- Server/database errors

📚 Key Libraries

Backend: express, mongoose, express-session, connect-mongo
Auth/Security: bcryptjs, express-rate-limit, helmet, validator
File Uploads: multer, cloudinary
Validation/Formatting: express-validator, luxon, he
UX/Feedback: connect-flash
Performance/Logging: compression, morgan

🧱 Project Structure (MVC)

This codebase follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. This keeps the app maintainable, testable, and easy to extend.

Models (Mongoose): data schema + validation.
Views (EJS): server-rendered HTML templates.
Controllers (Express): request in → response out.
Routes: HTTP method + path → controller.
Middleware: pre-route security, authentication, ownership, and eligibility checks.

├─ app.js                         #Express app config, sessions, database readiness, routes, and views
├─ server-local.js                #local entry point; starts Express after MongoDB connects
├─ middlewares.js                 #same-origin, authentication, ownership, and RSVP guards
├─ api/
│  └─ cron/reset.js               #protected Vercel daily demo reset
├─ controllers/                   #controllers (request handlers)
│  ├─ mainController.js           #home/about/contact
│  ├─ userController.js           #auth, profile
│  └─ eventController.js          #event CRUD, RSVP
├─ models/                        #models (Mongoose schemas)
│  ├─ user.js
│  ├─ eventModel.js
│  └─ rsvp.js
├─ routes/                        #express routers
│  ├─ mainRoutes.js
│  ├─ userRoutes.js
│  └─ eventRoutes.js
├─ views/                         #views (EJS templates)
│  ├─ about.ejs
│  ├─ contact.ejs
│  ├─ edit.ejs
│  ├─ error.ejs
│  ├─ event.ejs
│  ├─ events.ejs
│  ├─ index.ejs
│  ├─ login.ejs
│  ├─ newEvent.ejs
│  ├─ profile.ejs
│  ├─ signup.ejs
│  └─ partials/                   #shared UI
│     ├─ header.ejs
│     └─ footer.ejs
├─ public/                        #static assets served by Express
│  ├─ css/
│  ├─ images/
│  ├─ javascript/                 #event-management browser scripts
│  └─ js/                         #authentication browser scripts
├─ seed/
│  └─ defaultEvents.json          #canonical events restored by seed/reset tooling
├─ services/
│  └─ seedEvents.js               #shared seeded-event synchronization service
├─ scripts/                       #syntax checking, seeding, and seed export utilities
├─ vercel.json                    #serverless routes and the daily cron schedule
├─ package.json
└─ package-lock.json

🚀 Getting Started (Local Dev)

Clone repository

git clone https://github.com/jillmpla/node_js_space_events_app.git
cd node_js_space_events_app

Install dependencies

Node.js 24.x and npm 11 or newer are required.

npm ci

Create a .env file with your keys

MONGODB_URI=...
SECRET_KEY=...
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=...
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=...
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=...

# Required when running the protected demo reset
CRON_SECRET=...
HOST_USER_ID=...
RESET_MODE=full

Run the app

npm start

While developing, use npm run dev instead.

Visit: http://localhost:3000

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the License file for details.

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🌌 Celestial Gatherings

✨ Core Functionality

🛠️ Tech Stack

🔐 Authentication & Authorization

🧑‍🎨 UI/UX

🧩 Design System

♿ Accessibility

🧪 Validation & Error Handling

📚 Key Libraries

🧱 Project Structure (MVC)

🚀 Getting Started (Local Dev)

📜 License

If you find this project useful, consider giving it a star! ⭐

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Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
api/cron		api/cron
controllers		controllers
models		models
public		public
routes		routes
scripts		scripts
seed		seed
services		services
views		views
.env.example		.env.example
.gitignore		.gitignore
.nvmrc		.nvmrc
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
app.js		app.js
middlewares.js		middlewares.js
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
server-local.js		server-local.js
vercel.json		vercel.json

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🌌 Celestial Gatherings

✨ Core Functionality

🛠️ Tech Stack

🔐 Authentication & Authorization

🧑‍🎨 UI/UX

🧩 Design System

♿ Accessibility

🧪 Validation & Error Handling

📚 Key Libraries

🧱 Project Structure (MVC)

🚀 Getting Started (Local Dev)

📜 License

If you find this project useful, consider giving it a star! ⭐

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