Sahulat Ghar Tak — Web App & API

Backend and admin portal for Sahulat Ghar Tak ("Convenience to your doorstep"), a home-services marketplace that connects customers with vetted service providers. This ASP.NET Core application powers two things at once:

• REST APIs consumed by the mobile and web clients (/api/*, documented via Swagger).
• Admin/staff portal — server-rendered MVC views for managing providers, bookings, payments, categories, and documents.

Tech stack

• .NET 8 (ASP.NET Core MVC + Web API), C# with nullable reference types and implicit usings
• Entity Framework Core 8 targeting SQL Server (SQLite provider is also referenced for local scenarios)
• AutoMapper for DTO ↔ entity mapping
• JWT Bearer auth for the APIs and cookie auth for the admin portal
• BCrypt.Net for password hashing
• Swashbuckle / Swagger for API documentation
• QuestPDF and ClosedXML for PDF/Excel exports, SixLabors.ImageSharp for image processing

Project layout

Web App/
├── HomeServicesPortal/        # The ASP.NET Core project
│   ├── Controllers/           # MVC controllers (admin portal)
│   │   └── Api/               # REST API controllers (mobile/web clients)
│   ├── Services/              # Business logic (interface + implementation pairs)
│   ├── Repositories/          # EF Core repositories (generic + specialized)
│   ├── Entities/              # Domain entities (Client, Provider, ServiceBooking, ...)
│   ├── Data/                  # DbContexts: SahulatAppDbContext + AppDbContext
│   ├── DTOs/ · Models/        # Request/response contracts
│   ├── Mappings/              # AutoMapper profiles
│   ├── Middleware/            # Exception handling, etc.
│   ├── Options/               # Strongly-typed config (Otp, FileStorage)
│   ├── Views/                 # Razor views for the admin portal
│   ├── wwwroot/               # Static assets + uploaded provider documents
│   └── Program.cs             # Composition root, DI, auth, pipeline
├── deploy/                    # Deployment scripts (gcp/, hostinger/)
├── scripts/                   # Dev helpers + SQL migration/seed scripts
├── docs/                      # api-audit-report.md
├── api.txt · db.txt          # Live API and DB schema references
└── SahulatGharTak.sln

Note on the data layer: the project currently runs two DbContexts — SahulatAppDbContext (live schema) and AppDbContext — reflecting an in-progress consolidation. See docs/api-audit-report.md for details.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK
• Access to a SQL Server instance (the app connects directly to the configured server)

Configuration

Configuration files with secrets are git-ignored. Copy the examples and fill in your values:

cd HomeServicesPortal
cp appsettings.example.json appsettings.json
cp appsettings.Development.example.json appsettings.Development.json

Then set, at minimum:

• ConnectionStrings:DefaultConnection — your SQL Server connection string
• Jwt:Key — a secure secret at least 32 characters long (also Issuer, Audience)
• FileStorage:ProviderDocuments — upload path for provider documents

Run

The https launch profile (HomeServicesPortal/Properties/launchSettings.json) binds https://localhost:7265 — the same local base URL documented in api.txt — so always pass --launch-profile https (or the explicit --urls below) to keep the app and the API reference in sync.

Note that dotnet run cannot take SahulatGharTak.sln; point it at the single project the solution contains.

Windows (PowerShell / Visual Studio terminal), from the repo root:

# from the repo root
.\scripts\dev-run.ps1

# or directly, on the port api.txt documents
dotnet run --project HomeServicesPortal\HomeServicesPortal.csproj --launch-profile https

# forcing the ports explicitly (ignores launch profiles)
dotnet run --project HomeServicesPortal\HomeServicesPortal.csproj --urls "https://localhost:7265;http://localhost:5212"

WSL / Linux terminal: WSL here only has the .NET 10 SDK, while the app targets net8.0, so shell out to Windows PowerShell rather than running dotnet directly. Use -LiteralPath — the [D] in the repo path is treated as a wildcard by PowerShell's path resolution and fails with a bare path argument.

On a Linux box with the .NET 8 SDK actually installed, the plain command works as-is

Once running (at https://localhost:7265):

• Admin portal: /adminportal (login)
• Swagger UI: /swagger
• APIs: /api/... (e.g. api/service-categories, api/service-bookings, api/customer-service-requests, api/providers-detail)

Authentication

• APIs use JWT Bearer tokens. Unauthenticated/forbidden /api requests return a JSON ApiResponse (401/403) rather than a redirect.
• Admin portal uses cookie authentication with an 8-hour sliding expiration; the login path is /adminportal.

Deployment

Deployment is automated via GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/deploy.yml): on push to main, the app is built with dotnet publish -c Release and rsync'd to the GCP VM, then the sahulatghartak systemd service is restarted. Production appsettings*.json files are preserved on the server (excluded from the sync).

Manual/alternative deployment scripts live under deploy/gcp/ and deploy/hostinger/.

Reference docs

• api.txt — active mobile/client API reference
• db.txt — live database schema
• docs/api-audit-report.md — audit of redundant/non-functional endpoints and the two-data-layer situation

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Credits

Developed By:

• Rayder-23
• Coditium Solutions