GO-Authentication (golang-jwt-project)

A small, opinionated Go authentication example using Gin, JWT and MongoDB. It demonstrates a minimal signup/login flow, JWT generation + refresh token, middleware-protected endpoints, and a simple MongoDB-backed user model.

✅ Features

• User signup with validation
• User login with password verification and JWT access & refresh tokens
• Middleware that validates JWT and protects routes
• MongoDB for persistence

📁 Project layout (important files)

• main.go – server bootstrap and route registration
• routes/authRouter.go – public routes (signup, login)
• routes/userRouter.go – user management (protected)
• controller/userController.go – handlers for signup, login, fetch users
• helpers/tokenHelper.go – JWT helpers (generate/validate/update tokens)
• database/databaseConnection.go – MongoDB connection; uses .env
• models/userModel.go – user schema & validation rules

Requirements

• Go 1.25+ (see go.mod)
• A running MongoDB server or connection URI

Environment variables (.env) Create a .env file in the project root with at least these values:

MONGODB_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017
PORT=8000
SECRET_KEY=<a-strong-random-secret>

Quick start

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <your-repo-url> golang-jwt-project
cd golang-jwt-project

2. Create .env (see above)

3. Install dependencies and tidy modules:

go mod tidy

4. Run the server locally:

go run main.go

The server runs on the port configured by PORT (defaults to 8000).

API routes & examples

• POST /users/signup

  • Payload (example):

     {
     	"first_name": "Stephan",
     	"last_name": "Mut",
     	"email": "stephan@gmail.com",
     	"password": "qwert1234",
     	"phone": "1234567890",
     	"user_type": "USER"
     }

  • Response: 200 (created user insertion result) or 400/500 errors with messages.

• POST /users/login

  • Payload:

     { "email": "stephan@gmail.com", "password": "qwert1234" }

  • Successful response: user object including token and refresh_token.
  • Common errors: {"error":"email or password is incorrect"} when email or password mismatch.

• GET /users (protected)

• GET /users/:user_id (protected)

  • These endpoints require an authorization token in the request header named token (the middleware reads c.Request.Header.Get("token")).

How the auth flow works (brief)

• Signup: validates the payload, hashes the password, saves user to MongoDB, generates access and refresh JWTs.
• Login: verifies user & password, issues tokens and updates token fields in DB.
• Middleware: the Authenticate middleware inspects the token header and validates the JWT using SECRET_KEY.

Troubleshooting tips

• "no required module provides package "golang-jwt-project/controller"": Make sure the module path in go.mod matches your import paths. If you plan to publish the repo, consider using a full repo path (eg: module github.com/<user>/GO-Authentication) and update imports.
• {"error":"error occured"} from the middleware: this happens when no token header is sent; /users/login and /users/signup must be public routes (not behind the middleware) so POST login/signup must be called without a token.
• If go list complains about missing packages (eg go.mongodb.org/mongo-driver), run go mod tidy or go get to install dependencies.

Next steps / suggestions

• Use a proper repo module path in go.mod (e.g., github.com/<username>/GO-Authentication) to make imports predictable for others.
• Add tests for controllers and middleware.
• Add a refresh token endpoint and token rotation logic for production-grade security.

If you want, I can:

• Update go.mod to a repository path and rewrite imports for you.
• Add Postman collection / cURL examples for all endpoints.

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Made with ❤️ — reach out if you want me to expand this README with deploy instructions, CI, or example Postman collection.