MiniBlog API

MiniBlog is a minimal yet professional Django REST API project built to demonstrate core backend development skills, clean architecture, and real-world development workflow.

This project is designed for learning purposes and technical interviews.

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Tech Stack

• Python
• Django & Django REST Framework
• JWT Authentication (SimpleJWT)
• Docker & Docker Compose
• Git & GitHub (Issues, Branches, PRs)

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Features

• User registration and authentication using JWT
• Modular accounts and blog apps
• CRUD operations for blog posts
• Comment system for posts
• Permission control:
  • Only authenticated users can create posts or comments
  • Only post owners can update or delete their posts
• Dockerized development environment

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Project Structure

MiniBlog/
├── accounts/        # Authentication & user management
├── blog/            # Posts, comments, permissions
├── config/          # Project settings
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── requirements.txt
└── manage.py

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Authentication

JWT-based authentication is implemented using djangorestframework-simplejwt.

Auth Endpoints

• POST /api/auth/users/register/ — Register new user
• POST /api/auth/login/ — Obtain access & refresh tokens
• POST /api/auth/refresh/ — Refresh access token

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Blog Endpoints

Posts

• GET /api/posts/
• POST /api/posts/
• PUT /api/posts/{id}/
• DELETE /api/posts/{id}/

Comments

• GET /api/comments/
• POST /api/comments/
• PUT /api/comments/{id}/
• DELETE /api/comments/{id}/

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Redis Caching

In this project, Redis is used as a caching layer to improve API performance and reduce database load.

The main use case is caching the posts list endpoint, which is a read-heavy endpoint and does not change frequently.

How it works:

• On the first request to GET /api/posts/, data is fetched from the database and stored in Redis.
• Subsequent requests are served directly from Redis for 5 minutes.
• Whenever a post is created, updated, or deleted, the cache is invalidated to ensure data consistency.

Benefits:

• Reduced number of database queries
• Faster response times for read operations
• Better scalability for high-traffic scenarios

Redis is integrated using django-redis and is fully containerized via Docker.

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Run Project with Docker

Make sure Docker is installed, then run:

docker compose up --build

The project will be available at:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

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Development Notes

• Authentication logic is separated into the accounts app
• Permissions are handled using custom DRF permission classes
• Git workflow follows best practices (Issues, feature branches, Pull Requests)
• Docker is used to ensure consistent development environment

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Purpose

This project was built to:

• Practice Django REST Framework concepts
• Demonstrate backend development skills
• Serve as a portfolio project for job applications