Internship Logging and Evaluation System

Full-stack ILES application using Django REST, React, and Neon Postgres.

Architecture

Browser → Vercel (frontend/dist)
              ↓ /api/*
         Render (Gunicorn → Django)
              ↓
         Neon Postgres

Database

Production deployments require Neon Postgres. Local debug runs can fall back to SQLite when NEON_DATABASE_URL is not set, but Render must have NEON_DATABASE_URL configured.

1. Create a Neon project.
2. Open Connect and copy the Postgres connection string.
3. Prefer the pooled connection string for serverless hosts like Render.
4. Set it as NEON_DATABASE_URL.

The URL should look like:

postgresql://USER:PASSWORD@HOST.neon.tech/neondb?sslmode=require

Deploy backend to Render

Prerequisites

• GitHub repository connected to Render
• Neon Postgres connection string ready

Steps

1. In the Render dashboard, create a Blueprint from this repo (uses render.yaml), or create a Web Service manually with:

   • Root directory: backend
   • Runtime: Python 3.12
   • Build command:

     pip install -r requirements.txt
     python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
     python manage.py migrate --noinput

   • Start command:

     gunicorn config.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:$PORT --workers 2 --threads 4 --timeout 120 --access-logfile - --error-logfile -

2. Set the required environment variable in Render:

   • NEON_DATABASE_URL — your Neon Postgres URL (required)

3. Render auto-generates DJANGO_SECRET_KEY from render.yaml. Confirm these production settings are present:

   • DJANGO_DEBUG=false
   • DJANGO_SKIP_ENV_FILES=true
   • DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS includes your Render hostname and Vercel domain
   • DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS includes your Vercel domain
   • DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGIN_REGEXES=^https://.*\.vercel\.app$ (covers preview deployments)

4. Deploy and verify:

   GET https://<your-render-service>.onrender.com/api/health/
   

   Expected response: {"status":"ok","service":"internship-logging-evaluation","database":"ok"}

5. Optional: seed demo data from the Render shell:

   python manage.py seed_demo

If your Render URL changes

Update these files to match the new hostname:

• vercel.json — /api rewrite destination
• render.yaml — DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS, DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS, DJANGO_CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS
• .env.example — documentation defaults

Deploy frontend to Vercel

Steps

1. Import the GitHub repository into Vercel.

2. Vercel reads vercel.json at the repo root automatically:

   • Installs dependencies in frontend/
   • Builds with npm run build
   • Serves frontend/dist
   • Proxies /api/* to the Render backend

3. No build-time environment variables are required if you use the /api proxy (the default in frontend/src/api/client.js).

4. Optional: bypass the Vercel proxy and call Render directly by setting this in the Vercel project settings:

   VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://<your-render-service>.onrender.com/api
   

   CORS is already configured on the backend for Vercel domains.

If your Vercel domain changes

• Production domain: add it to DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS and DJANGO_CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS on Render.
• Preview deployments (*.vercel.app): already allowed via DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGIN_REGEXES.

If your Render URL changes

Update the /api rewrite destination in vercel.json.

Local development

Backend

cd backend
$env:NEON_DATABASE_URL="postgresql://USER:PASSWORD@HOST.neon.tech/neondb?sslmode=require"
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py seed_demo
python manage.py runserver 127.0.0.1:8000

API root: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev -- --host 127.0.0.1 --port 5174

App URL: http://127.0.0.1:5174/

The Vite dev server proxies /api to http://127.0.0.1:8000 by default. Override with VITE_DEV_API_PROXY in frontend/.env if needed.

Sign up first, then sign in with the created account. Account records are stored in Neon through Django.

Environment variables

Variable	Where	Purpose
NEON_DATABASE_URL	Render (required)	Neon Postgres connection string
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY	Render	Django secret (auto-generated by Blueprint)
DJANGO_DEBUG	Render	Must be false in production
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS	Render	Comma-separated hostnames
DJANGO_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	Render	Allowed frontend origins
VITE_API_BASE_URL	Vercel (optional)	Direct backend URL; default is /api proxy
VITE_DEV_API_PROXY	Local frontend only	Vite dev proxy target

See .env.example (backend) and frontend/.env.example (frontend) for the full list.