Voucher App 🎟️

A full-stack app where users can purchase vouchers via a React Native (Expo) mobile frontend and a Node.js/Express backend.
The frontend handles voucher purchase flow, PDF generation and download to device. The backend handles voucher persistence in a database, PDF generation and email delivery.

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Features

• 🔑 input validation (email and phone number format checks)
• 🎟️ Voucher purchase flow
• 💾 Voucher storage in SQL database
• 📄 PDF voucher generation
• ✉️ Email confirmations (with attachment)

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Tech Stack

Frontend: React Native (Expo), TypeScript
Backend: Node.js, Express, SQL, Nodemailer
Testing: Jest, React Testing Library
Other: GitHub Actions (CI), Expo Go for demo

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Setup

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/voucher-app.git
cd voucher-app

2. Configure environment variables

🔧 Backend (voucher-app/backend)

Create a .env file in the backend folder with the following:

EMAIL_USER=your_email@example.com
EMAIL_PASSWORD=your_email_password_or_app_password
SERVER_URL=http://localhost:3001

These credentials are used for sending voucher emails via Nodemailer. You may need to enable "less secure apps" or generate an app password depending on your email provider.

🔧 Frontend (voucher-app/frontend)

Create a .env file in the frontend folder with:

API_BASE=http://localhost:3001

If you're testing on a physical device, replace localhost with your machine’s local IP address (e.g. http://192.168.x.x:3001).

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3. Install dependencies

📦 Backend

cd backend
npm install

📦 Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

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4. Start the app

🚀 Backend

npm run dev

Starts the Express server with nodemon on port 3001.

🚀 Frontend

npx expo start

Launches the Expo development server. You can open the app in Expo Go or an emulator.

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Notes

• 🖼️ In frontend/components/createVoucherDownload.ts, line 34 references a background image. You can replace the placeholder URL with a hosted version of voucher_background.png from assets/images to ensure it loads correctly in emails.
• 🧪 Tests are written using Jest and can be run with npm test in both frontend and backend folders.
• 🧱 The backend uses SQLite for local development. You can swap this out for PostgreSQL or MySQL for production.
• 📬 Email delivery uses SMTP. For production, consider using a transactional email service like SendGrid or Mailgun.
• 🔐 Never commit your .env files — they contain sensitive credentials.

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Coming Soon

• 🧾 Voucher redemption flow
• 📊 Admin dashboard for voucher tracking

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👩‍🔧 Author

Built by Nicole Niebel — independent developer passionate about robust, testable mobile apps and resilient backend APIs.