Messaging API

Messaging API that allows to manage messages between users.

Features

User Authentication

• Signup - Create a new user account by providing username and password.
• Login - Authenticate existing users with username and password.

Messaging

• Write Message - Authenticated users can send messages to others with subject and body.
• Get User Messages - Get all messages sent to or from an authenticated user.
• Get Unread User Messages - Get all unread messages for an authenticated user.
• Read Message - Get a specific message by ID and mark as read if accessed by receiver.
• Delete Message - Allow sender or receiver to delete a specific message.

Security

• Token Authentication - Only authenticated users can access endpoints. Users get a token on signup/login that must be included in the Authorization header.

---

Getting Started with the Project

To run the project, follow these steps:

Rename the .example.env file to .env

mv .example.env .env

Open the .env file and fill in the necessary information where indicated.

Build and run the Docker containers using docker-compose.

docker-compose up --build

Accessing the Backend:

Once the containers are up and running, the server will be accessible at:

http://0.0.0.0:8000/

Using the Django Admin:

To access the Django Admin interface, use the following URL:

http://0.0.0.0:8000/admin/

Username: admin

Password: admin

---

Endpoints

Users

Signup

Create a new user account.

POST /api/users/signup/

Request body:

{
  "username": "new_user",
  "password": "secret"
}

Returns auth token on success.

After signing up a new user, copy the returned auth token , your username , and password , then update the following variables in the Postman collection:

token - Set this to the auth token received after signup

current_user - Set this to your username

password - Set this to your password

This will allow you to make authenticated requests to the API after registering a new user account.

Login

Authenticate an existing user.

POST /api/users/login/

Request body:

{
  "username": "your_username",
  "password": "your_password"
}

Returns auth token on success.

Messages

Get current user's messages

Get a list of messages for the authenticated user.

GET /api/messages/

Compose message

Create a new message.

POST /api/messages/create/

Request body:

{
  "from_user": "jane_doe",
  "to_user": "your_username",
  "subject": "Meeting invite",
  "body": "Let's meet at 2pm tomorrow."
}

Get unread messages

Get a list of unread messages for the authenticated user.

GET /api/messages/unread/

Read message

Get a specific message.

GET /api/messages/{message_id}/

Update message

Update an existing message.

PUT /api/messages/{message_id}/

Request body same as compose message.

Delete message

Delete a message.

DELETE /api/messages/{message_id}/