Furever Home

Overview

Furever Home is a pet caring platform that connects pet owners with reliable pet care services. Built with a modern tech stack including Next.js, tRPC, and deployed across multiple environments for reliability and scalability.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Shadcn UI
• Backend: tRPC for type-safe API calls
• Database: Neon DB (serverless Postgres)
• Storage: AWS S3 for media files
• Infrastructure: Docker, GitHub Actions CI/CD

Architecture

The project follows a monorepo structure with separate packages for the customer-facing frontend and backend services. This separation allows for independent scaling and deployment of each component.

furever-home/
├── apps/
│   ├── backend/customer/    # tRPC API server
│   └── frontend/customer/   # Next.js app
├── packages/                # Shared utilities
└── docker-compose.yaml      # Local development

Local Development

For local development, Docker Compose spins up all required services:

# Start all services (Postgres, Redis, Mailhog, MinIO)
docker-compose up -d

# Run backend
pnpm dev --filter=customer_backend

# Run frontend
pnpm dev --filter=customer_front

Deployment Strategy

I implemented a multi-environment deployment strategy with automated CI/CD pipelines:

Staging Environment (Render)

Pushing to the staging branch triggers an automated deployment:

1. GitHub Action builds the Docker image
2. Image is pushed to GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)
3. Render pulls and deploys the new image

This provides a quick and cost-effective way to test changes before production.

Production Environment (AWS ECS)

Production runs on AWS ECS for better scalability and reliability:

1. Push to main branch triggers the production workflow
2. Docker image is built and pushed to GHCR
3. AWS ECS pulls the latest image and performs a rolling deployment
4. Frontend is deployed to Vercel for optimal edge performance

# Deployment flow
git checkout main
git merge staging
git push origin main

CI/CD Pipeline

The project uses GitHub Actions for continuous integration and deployment:

• prod.yml - Production backend deployment to AWS ECS
• stg.yml - Staging backend deployment to Render
• vercel-customer.yml - Frontend deployment to Vercel

Conclusion

Building Furever Home was an exercise in creating a production-ready application with proper DevOps practices. The multi-environment setup ensures that changes are thoroughly tested in staging before reaching production, while the automated CI/CD pipelines make deployments reliable and repeatable.