Blog Web Application — Project Plan (Sections 1 to 33)

Compiled for handoff to development team. Includes goals, architecture, roadmap, DB design, security, and operational guidance.

1 — Executive summary

Build a modern, secure, SEO-friendly, multilingual blog platform with rich post types, PWA support, AI content generation, AWS S3 media, Ads management, author rewards, advanced admin controls, and a responsive Bootstrap/Tailwind UI. Backend: Node + Express + MySQL. Frontend: React (Tailwind + optional Bootstrap). Designed for scale, extensibility and maintainability.

2 — High-level goals & non-functional requirements

• Availability: 99.9% design; deployable in clustered mode.
• Security: OWASP-aware, secure auth, rate limiting, input sanitization, CSRF protection, prepared statements.
• Performance: DB indices, Redis caching, lazy image loading, CDN for media.
• Scalability: Stateless APIs, horizontal scaling, microservice-friendly boundaries.
• Extensibility: Plugin-friendly architecture for new post types, languages, widgets.
• SEO & Indexing: SEO-friendly URLs, structured data (JSON-LD), sitemap, Google Indexing API.
• UX: Clean responsive layouts, light/dark mode, unlimited theme colors, RTL support.

3 — Target users / personas

• Admin / Ops
• Author
• Moderator
• Registered Reader
• Guest

4 — MVP / Phased roadmap (suggested)

1. Phase 0 — Planning & infra: Wireframes, data model, CI/CD, repo structure.
2. Phase 1 — Core CMS & Auth: Roles, secure auth, CRUD posts, S3 media.
3. Phase 2 — Reader features: Responsive frontend, search, reading list, comments, SEO URLs.
4. Phase 3 — Advanced: AI content generation, scheduled posts, newsletter, ads, author rewards.
5. Phase 4 — Polish & Ops: Google Indexing, sitemap, RSS aggregator, docs, installer.

5 — Architecture & major components

• Frontend: React SPA or SSR (Next.js recommended for SEO). Tailwind + Bootstrap. PWA manifest & service worker.
• Backend: Node.js + Express. Middlewares for auth, rate-limit, compression, helmet, i18n.
• Database: MySQL (InnoDB). Redis for caching & sessions.
• Storage: AWS S3 + CloudFront CDN.
• Search: MySQL full-text or external (Algolia/Elastic).
• Task queue: BullMQ / Redis for background jobs.
• Monitoring: Prometheus/Grafana, Sentry, ELK stack.

6 — Security & Authentication

• Password hashing: Argon2 or bcrypt
• JWT with refresh tokens; httpOnly cookies for refresh
• Rate-limit endpoints, CSRF tokens, input validation/sanitization
• Content Security Policy, HSTS, secure headers via Helmet
• RBAC with permissions table

7 — Localization & RTL

• i18n JSON files per language; admin UI to add translations
• DB: post_translations table per-language
• RTL support via direction toggles and Tailwind RTL plugin
• Workflow: add language → upload translations → configure fonts/direction

8 — SEO & Indexing

• SEO-friendly URLs (configurable)
• Meta tags, canonical tags
• Structured data JSON-LD per page
• Sitemap generation route; Google Indexing API admin push
• SSR recommended; otherwise pre-render or dynamic rendering for bots

9 — UI / UX & Visual Settings

• Theme system using CSS variables; admin color palette and dark/light toggle
• Editable navigation builder with drag & drop and mega-menu options
• Widget system with configurable widget endpoints
• Per-page layout options (title, breadcrumb, right column)
• Responsive sliders, sortable from admin

10 — Admin & Author features

• Role-permission matrix (Admin, Moderator, Author, User)
• Admin dashboards: site stats, recent activities, pending items
• Author dashboard: earnings, drafts, scheduled posts
• Installation wizard for DB, S3, admin user, site settings
• OpenAPI spec and interactive docs

11 — Background Jobs & Cron

• Use Redis/BullMQ for newsletter, AI generation, bulk imports, RSS fetch, sitemap regeneration
• Cron: process scheduled posts every minute

12 — Monitoring, Testing & CI/CD

• Tests: unit (Jest), integration (supertest), E2E (Cypress)
• CI: GitHub Actions to run tests, lint, build, and deploy
• Staging environment mirrors production

13 — API design (RESTful) — Highlights

Base path: /api/v1. Key endpoints (Auth, Users, Posts, Media, Comments, Ads, Navigation, Widgets, Pages, Search, Sitemap, RSS, AI, Newsletter).

14 — Database design (MySQL) — rationale

Normalized relational schema, InnoDB, utf8mb4 for emoji & multilingual. post_translations for per-language content. Slug uniqueness per language.

15 — Database schema (key tables)

Main tables: users, roles, posts, post_translations, categories, tags, media, comments, reactions, polls, subscribers, settings, reading_list, follows, post_images, post_files, post_categories, post_tags.

16 — SQL — Create tables (core subset)

Use provided DDL scripts (migrations) for MySQL. Include fulltext indexes where appropriate; consider ElasticSearch/Algolia for heavy traffic.

17 — Typical SQL queries (examples)

1. Insert a new post (transaction): INSERT INTO posts ...; INSERT INTO post_translations ...
2. Publish scheduled posts: UPDATE posts SET status='published' WHERE status='scheduled' AND published_at <= NOW();
3. Increment view count: UPDATE posts SET views = views + 1 WHERE id = ?;
4. Search posts (FULLTEXT): SELECT ... MATCH ... AGAINST ...
5. Add a reaction (upsert): INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ...
6. Bulk CSV import pattern: upload to S3, queue job, worker inserts
7. Get posts for homepage: join posts + post_translations filtered by language

18 — File storage & media handling

• Presigned S3 uploads from frontend; store original + resized variants
• Serve via CDN; store metadata in media table
• Use lazy loading and srcset for responsive images

19 — AI content generator integration

• POST /ai/generate enqueues job; worker calls AI provider
• Save generated content into post_translations; keep version history
• Safety: require human approval before publishing AI content by default

20 — Ads & Monetization

• ad_slots entity for responsive placements; admin creates ad entries with code or image
• Schedule ads and target by category/page
• Respect Google AdSense policies; validate admin scripts

21 — Author reward system

• Track rewards_balance on users; configure rules in settings
• Worker computes earnings and credits authors periodically

22 — Membership system

• RBAC for four roles; membership toggle in settings
• Paid membership (future): Stripe integration and subscription tables

23 — RSS aggregator & feeds

• rss_feeds table; worker fetches feeds, stores rss_items (no full-text fetch)
• Admin maps channels to categories

24 — Performance & caching strategy

• Redis cache popular posts, sessions, rate-limiter; edge CDN for static
• Cache invalidation on post update; use cache tags

25 — Pagination, sorting, and API patterns

• Cursor pagination for feeds; offset pagination for admin lists
• Support page & limit or cursor tokens

26 — Testing & QA checklist (selection)

• Auth flows & permissions
• XSS sanitization
• Image upload & S3 signed URL tests
• Search accuracy, sitemap, newsletter, bulk upload, PWA offline, Google Indexing API

27 — Deployment & DevOps

• Containerize (Docker); use ECS/EKS or EC2 + autoscaling; RDS for MySQL
• Redis (ElastiCache), S3, CloudFront
• DB migrations with Knex/Flyway; backups & PITR

28 — Admin UI & Installation Wizard

1. DB connection check
2. Create initial admin user
3. S3 credentials test
4. Basic site settings
5. Run migrations & seed roles

29 — Documentation & deliverables for developers

• OpenAPI 3.0 spec
• SQL DDL & ER diagram
• Storybook for components
• Deployment & runbook; README, CI config

30 — Sample queries & usage snippets

Examples include create category + translation, add tag & link to post, save media record after S3 upload — use provided SQL snippets in migrations and examples.

31 — Operational concerns & notes

• GDPR / Privacy: consent for subscribers; export/delete endpoints
• Email deliverability: SES/SendGrid for transactional emails
• Secrets: use vault or cloud secrets manager
• Rate limits & spam detection; CAPTCHA for comments when needed

32 — Deliverables checklist for handoff to dev team

• Project repo skeleton
• OpenAPI spec + sample API tokens for staging
• SQL DDL scripts & seed data
• Component library + wireframes
• Installation wizard spec & script

33 — Next recommended steps (actionable)

1. Approve roadmap & choose SSR vs SPA (Next.js if SEO-priority)
2. Create repo & CI pipeline; run initial lint/test scaffold
3. Implement DB migrations and seed roles
4. Implement auth & user management
5. Implement posts, translations, and media upload flow
6. Begin front-end layout & admin UI components

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Created on October 20, 2025.

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