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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/meenalsingh0/GradGather/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Running GradGather locally requires three components to be active at the same time: a MongoDB instance for user authentication, the Node.js/Express server for routing and page rendering, and — if you want interest-based people recommendations — the Python/Flask microservice. The Express server and MongoDB are always required; the Flask recommender is optional and can be skipped when working on any feature unrelated to the /recom endpoint.

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Prerequisites

Make sure the following tools are installed on your machine before proceeding:
  • Node.js 18 or higher — Download from nodejs.org. Verify with node --version.
  • npm — Bundled with Node.js. Verify with npm --version.
  • MongoDB — Either a local installation (mongodb.com/try/download/community) or a free-tier MongoDB Atlas cluster. GradGather connects to mongodb://localhost:27017/LoginFormPractice by default.
  • Python 3.8+ and pip — Only required if you intend to run the people recommender microservice. Verify with python --version and pip --version.

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Starting the Main Application

1

Clone the repository and install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/meenalsingh0/GradGather.git
cd GradGather
npm install
npm install reads package.json and installs all dependencies — Express, Handlebars (hbs), Mongoose, paypal-rest-sdk, dotenv, and more — into node_modules/.
2

Create the .env file

Create a file named .env in the project root (next to package.json) with your configuration. At minimum you need:
# Server
PORT=3000

# PayPal (get credentials from https://developer.paypal.com/)
PAYPAL_MODE=sandbox
PAYPAL_CLIENT_KEY=your_paypal_client_id_here
PAYPAL_SECRET_KEY=your_paypal_secret_key_here
See the Environment Variables page for a full description of each key and how to obtain PayPal sandbox credentials.
3

Start MongoDB

If you are running MongoDB locally, start the daemon in a separate terminal:
mongod
If you prefer to use MongoDB Atlas, create a free cluster, copy your connection string, and update the mongoose.connect() call in src/mongo.js (or set the MONGODB_URI environment variable as described in the Environment Variables guide).
4

Start the Express server

From the project root, start the server with hot-reload using nodemon (recommended during development):
npx nodemon src/index.js
Or start it once without auto-reload:
node src/index.js
When the server is ready you will see two confirmation messages in the terminal:
mongoose connected
port connected
5

Open the app in your browser

Navigate to http://localhost:3000. You should see the BridgeU home page rendered by tempelates/home.hbs.

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Starting the People Recommender (Optional)

The Flask recommender lives in tempelates/recom.py. It reads tempelates/people_recommender_dataset.csv, computes cosine similarity between people based on their interest vectors, and serves results on http://localhost:5000/recom.
1

Install Python dependencies

pip install flask pandas scikit-learn flask-cors
2

Navigate to the recommender directory

The script expects people_recommender_dataset.csv to be in the same directory, so you must run it from inside tempelates/:
cd tempelates
3

Start the Flask server

python recom.py
Flask will start in debug mode and print something like:
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000
4

Test the recommender endpoint

The recommender API is now available at http://localhost:5000/recom. Send a request with a person_name query parameter matching a name in the dataset:
GET http://localhost:5000/recom?person_name=Alice&n=5
The response is a JSON object mapping the top-N similar people to their cosine similarity scores.

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Available Routes After Startup

Once the Express server is running, the following routes are registered and accessible:
RouteDescription
GET /BridgeU home page
GET /2signupStudent / Alumni role selection
GET /signupSignup form
POST /signupCreate a new user account in LogInCollection
GET /loginLogin form
POST /loginAuthenticate user against LogInCollection
GET /landingAlumni dashboard
GET /dashboardGeneral dashboard view
GET /studashStudent dashboard
GET /directoryAlumni directory
GET /eventsEvents listing
GET /clubsClubs listing
GET /technoTechnoX club detail page
GET /connectConnect with alumni
GET /userprofileAlumni profile page
GET /stuprofileStudent profile page
GET /donationDonation campaigns
GET /paymentGatewayPayPal checkout page
GET /successPayment success page
GET /cancelPayment cancelled by the user

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Development Tips

Use nodemon for faster iteration. npx nodemon src/index.js watches all .js files in the project and automatically restarts the server whenever you save a change, so you never need to stop and restart manually.
Watch the terminal for startup confirmation. The server prints port connected as soon as Express begins listening and mongoose connected once Mongoose establishes its connection to MongoDB. If you only see port connected but not mongoose connected, check that mongod is running and reachable on port 27017.
CSS changes take effect immediately. Stylesheets for each page live in public/css/ (e.g. public/css/directory.css) and are served as plain static files by express.static. There is no build or compilation step — just save the CSS file and refresh the browser.
The templates directory is named tempelates — with the letters transposed. This is not a typo to be corrected; it is the name used throughout the source code and must remain consistent across the src/index.js path resolution, the tempelates/ folder on disk, and any tooling (e.g. nodemon watch config) you add later.

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