Lib.rs

Real‑Time Markdown Editor – Backend

A lightweight way to co‑author documents without the overhead of heavyweight office suites.

A small, high‑performance Rust service built with Actix‑Web that powers the collaborative editing experience.
It handles WebSocket synchronization, OAuth2 authentication, JWT session handling, and persistence of documents in PostgreSQL (or SQLite for single‑node setups).

Table of Contents

1. Features
2. Tech Stack
3. Prerequisites
4. Getting Started (local)
5. Running with Docker
6. License

Features

• WebSocket‑driven real‑time sync – Low‑latency broadcast of Markdown changes.
• OAuth2 login – GitHub & Google providers (via oauth2 crate).
• Role‑Based Access Control – Owner / editor / viewer permissions enforced in middleware.
• Document versioning – Snapshots stored in PostgreSQL (or SQLite).
• Health endpoint – /api/ping used by Docker healthcheck.

Tech Stack

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (stable) – rustup installed.
• Cargo (bundled with Rust).
• PostgreSQL (or SQLite) instance reachable from the container.
• Docker (optional, for containerised builds).

Getting Started (local)

1. Clone the repo (if you haven’t already)
git clone https://github.com/sumanjangili/real-time-md-editor.git
cd real-time-md-editor/backend

2. Install Rust (if missing)
curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
source $HOME/.cargo/env

3. Set up environment variables
cp .env.example .env   # edit the file with your DB credentials & OAuth secrets
Example entries:
# DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost/md_editor
# GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=…
# GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=…

4. Run migrations (if you use sqlx migrations)
cargo install sqlx-cli --no-default-features --features postgres
sqlx migrate run

5. Start the server in dev mode
cargo run
# Server listens on 0.0.0.0:8080 (configurable via .env)
# Health check: curl http://localhost:8080/api/ping

Testing the WebSocket

You can use wscat or a browser console:

npm install -g wscat
wscat -c ws://localhost:8080/api/ws

Send a JSON payload like { "doc_id": "demo", "content": "# Hello" } and watch the broadcast.

Running with Docker

The repo includes a multi‑stage Dockerfile that compiles a statically linked binary and runs it in a tiny Alpine image.

# From the repository root (where the Dockerfile lives)
docker build -t real-time-md-editor-backend --target runtime .

# Run the container (adjust env vars as needed)
docker run -p 8080:8080 \
  -e DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@db-host/md_editor \
  -e GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=… -e GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=… \
  real-time-md-editor-backend

Docker‑Compose (optional) – you can spin up both frontend and backend together:

services:
  backend:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: backend/Dockerfile
    ports: ["8080:8080"]
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgres://user:pass@db/md_editor
      # …other env vars…

  frontend:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: frontend/Dockerfile
    ports: ["80:80"]
    depends_on: [backend]

License

The backend is also released under the MIT License (see the repository‑wide LICENSE file).

Contributing

• Feel free to open pull requests, report bugs, or suggest enhancements via the GitHub Issues page.
• For larger feature work, consider creating a feature branch and linking the PR to the corresponding issue.