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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/bhavnesh7781/Food-Delivery-App/llms.txt

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The Food Delivery App backend reads all runtime configuration from a .env file located in the backend/ directory. This file is loaded at startup via the dotenv package (import 'dotenv/config' in server.js), making every key available as process.env.<KEY> throughout the application. You must create this file before starting the server — without it, the database connection, authentication, and payment processing will all fail to initialise.

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.env Template

Create the file backend/.env and populate it with the following values, replacing each placeholder with your real credentials:
backend/.env
MONGODB_URI=mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@cluster.mongodb.net/food-delivery
JWT_SECRET=your_super_secret_key_here
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
PORT=4000
Never commit your .env file to version control. Add backend/.env to your .gitignore immediately to prevent accidentally leaking database credentials, JWT secrets, or Stripe keys to a public repository.

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Variable Reference

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MONGODB_URI
string
required
The MongoDB connection string used by Mongoose to connect to your database. Consumed in backend/config/db.js via mongoose.connect(process.env.MONGODB_URI).
  • Local MongoDB: mongodb://localhost:27017/food-delivery
  • MongoDB Atlas: mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@cluster.mongodb.net/food-delivery
See the Database setup guide for full instructions on obtaining this value.
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JWT_SECRET
string
required
The secret key used to sign and verify JSON Web Tokens. When a user logs in, the server signs a JWT with this key. On every subsequent authenticated request, backend/middleware/auth.js calls jwt.verify(token, process.env.JWT_SECRET) to validate the token and extract the user’s ID.Choose a long, random, high-entropy string (at least 32 characters). Never reuse this value across environments.
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STRIPE_SECRET_KEY
string
required
Your Stripe secret API key, used to create Stripe Checkout sessions when a customer places an order. Consumed in backend/controllers/orderController.js where new Stripe(process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY) initialises the Stripe client.
  • Development: use a test key prefixed with sk_test_
  • Production: use a live key prefixed with sk_live_
See the Stripe Payments setup guide for full instructions.
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PORT
number
The port number the Express HTTP server listens on. Defined in server.js as const PORT = process.env.PORT || 4000, so this variable is optional — the server defaults to port 4000 when it is not set.

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Hard-coded Frontend URLs

The frontend and admin dashboard currently hard-code the backend base URL as http://localhost:3000 in two files:
  • frontend/src/context/StoreContext.jsx — const url = "http://localhost:3000"
  • admin/src/App.jsx — const url = "http://localhost:3000"
For production deployments you must update both of these values to your deployed backend URL (e.g. https://api.yourdomain.com). Consider moving this value to a frontend .env file using a VITE_API_URL variable so it can be configured per environment without changing source code.
Once your .env is configured, continue with the setup guides:
  • Database → — connect to a local MongoDB instance or provision a free MongoDB Atlas cluster.
  • Stripe Payments → — obtain your Stripe test keys and verify the checkout flow end-to-end.

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