Architecture & Deployment

Microservices ecosystem, API Gateway pattern, and automated CI/CD pipeline.

System Architecture

The application transitions from a traditional monolith to a distributed architecture. It uses an API Gateway pattern where the main API Service acts as the single entry point, handling security before routing traffic to internal containerized services.

Multi-Process Container Optimization: To optimize cloud resources on Render’s free tier, the Content Service runs multiple Node.js processes (Posts, Follows, Likes) within a single Docker container using a shell script orchestration.

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Service Distribution

The ecosystem is divided into specific domain-driven services:

Service Name	Environment	Port	Primary Responsibility
api-service	Docker (Render)	3000	Auth validation, Users management, and request routing.
content-service	Docker (Render)	3001, 3003, 3004	Handles Posts, Follows, and Likes logic.
db-service	Docker (Render)	3002	Abstracted database access layer.

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CI/CD Pipeline (GitHub Actions)

The deployment strategy is fully automated and vendor-agnostic. Every push to the main branch triggers a workflow that builds the microservices into Docker images and pushes them to a centralized registry.

Infrastructure Stack

Compute

Render: Hosts the containerized web services, automatically pulling the latest images from Docker Hub.

Database

Neon: Provides a highly available, serverless PostgreSQL instance with persistent storage.

Container Registry

Docker Hub: Acts as the centralized repository for all built microservice images.

Automation

GitHub Actions: Handles the continuous integration and delivery pipeline securely using repository secrets.