Go backend implementation of the RealWorld API specification

This codebase was created to demonstrate a fully fledged fullstack application built with Go including CRUD operations, authentication, routing, pagination, and more.

We've gone to great lengths to adhere to the Go community styleguides & best practices.

For more information on how to this works with other frontends/backends, head over to the RealWorld repo.

"The mother of all demo apps" — Exemplary fullstack Medium.com clone powered by React, Angular, Node, Django, and many more 🏅

While most "todo" demos provide an excellent cursory glance at a framework's capabilities, they typically don't convey the knowledge & perspective required to actually build real applications with it.

RealWorld solves this by allowing you to choose any frontend (React, Angular, & more) and any backend (Node, Django, & more) and see how the exact same Medium.com clone is built using different tech stacks.

This implementation is built using raeperd/kickstart.go, a minimalistic HTTP server template in Go that provides:

• Small codebase (production-ready starting point)
• Single file server design
• Only standard library dependencies
• Graceful shutdown and health monitoring

• User Management: Registration, authentication, and profile management
• Articles: CRUD operations for articles with slug-based URLs
• Comments: Add, view, and delete comments on articles
• Favorites: Like and unlike articles
• Following: Follow and unfollow other users
• Tags: Discover articles by tags
• Feeds: Global feed and personalized feed for followed users

• RESTful API: Following RealWorld API specification
• JWT Authentication: Secure token-based authentication
• Input Validation: Request validation and error handling
• CORS Support: Cross-origin resource sharing enabled
• OpenAPI Documentation: Interactive API documentation
• Graceful Shutdown: Handles SIGINT and SIGTERM signals
• Health Monitoring: Service health status with version info
• Access Logging: Comprehensive HTTP request logging
• Panic Recovery: Graceful error handling and recovery
• Debug Endpoints: Built-in profiling and metrics

• Go 1.24 or later
• Make (for build automation)

1. Clone and setup

   git clone <your-repo-url>
   cd realworld.go

2. Build and run

   make run

   Server will start on port 8080

3. Test the API

   # Health check
   curl http://localhost:8080/health
   
   # View API documentation
   curl http://localhost:8080/openapi.yaml

• golangci-lint - Code linting
• air - Hot reload development

# Start development environment with hot reload
docker-compose up

# API server: http://localhost:8080  
# Swagger UI: http://localhost:8081

All endpoints follow the RealWorld API specification:

• Authentication

  • POST /api/users/login - Login user
  • POST /api/users - Register user
  • GET /api/user - Get current user
  • PUT /api/user - Update user

• Profiles

  • GET /api/profiles/:username - Get profile
  • POST /api/profiles/:username/follow - Follow user
  • DELETE /api/profiles/:username/follow - Unfollow user

• Articles

  • GET /api/articles - List articles (with filters)
  • GET /api/articles/feed - Get user feed
  • POST /api/articles - Create article
  • GET /api/articles/:slug - Get article
  • PUT /api/articles/:slug - Update article
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug - Delete article

• Comments

  • GET /api/articles/:slug/comments - Get comments
  • POST /api/articles/:slug/comments - Add comment
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug/comments/:id - Delete comment

• Favorites & Tags

  • POST /api/articles/:slug/favorite - Favorite article
  • DELETE /api/articles/:slug/favorite - Unfavorite article
  • GET /api/tags - Get tags

• GET /health - Service health with version info
• GET /openapi.yaml - OpenAPI specification
• GET /debug/pprof/* - Profiling information
• GET /debug/vars - Runtime metrics

# Run all tests
make test

# Run specific test
go test -v -run TestHealth

# Run tests with coverage
go test -v -cover ./...

# Build Docker image
make docker

# Run containerized
docker run -p 8080:8080 realworld.go

• VERSION - Application version (default: "dev")
• PORT - Server port (default: "8080")

.
├── main.go              # Main server implementation
├── main_test.go         # Integration tests  
├── api/
│   └── openapi.yaml     # OpenAPI specification
├── docker-compose.yaml  # Development environment
├── Dockerfile          # Container build
├── Makefile            # Build automation
└── README.md           # This file

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature-name
3. Make your changes following Go best practices
4. Add tests for new functionality
5. Ensure tests pass: make test
6. Run linter: make lint
7. Submit a pull request

• RealWorld Project - Main RealWorld repository
• RealWorld Demo - Live demo application
• RealWorld Docs - API documentation
• kickstart.go - Original template used