Expenses Manager

A full-stack personal expense tracking application, built as a REST API backend (Laravel + Sanctum) paired with a separate React single-page application frontend.

Tech Stack

Backend: Laravel 11, Sanctum (token authentication), PHPUnit Frontend: React (Vite), Tailwind CSS, React Router, Vitest + React Testing Library Database: MySQL

Architecture

This project is a clean separation between backend and frontend:

• The root of this repository is a Laravel REST API — no Blade views, JSON only.
• /frontend is a completely separate React SPA that communicates with the API over HTTP.

This separation was a deliberate choice to demonstrate backend and frontend competencies independently.

Features

• Full CRUD for expense records (create, view, edit, delete)
• User registration, login, and logout using Sanctum token authentication
• Expenses are scoped per-user — each user only sees and manages their own records
• Policy-based authorization: a user attempting to view/edit/delete another user's expense receives a 403 Forbidden
• Server-side validation matching the OpenAPI specification
• Dark/light theme toggle, persisted across sessions
• 18 automated backend tests (PHPUnit) covering auth, CRUD, validation, and authorization
• Automated frontend component tests (Vitest + React Testing Library)

Known Deviations from the Original Specification

Documented in full in openapi.json:

1. expense_type was expanded from 3 categories (travel, food, other) to 5 (education, travel, food, utility, other).
2. Authentication (Sanctum) was added, which was not part of the original specification, to support per-user data ownership.

Setup Instructions

Backend (Laravel API)

```bash composer install cp .env.example .env php artisan key:generate ```

Update .env with your database credentials, then:

```bash php artisan migrate php artisan serve ```

The API will be available at the URL Laravel reports (or via Laragon's virtual host, e.g. http://expenses-manager.test).

Frontend (React SPA)

```bash cd frontend npm install ```

Create a .env file inside /frontend:

``` VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://expenses-manager.test/api ```

```bash npm run dev ```

The app will be available at http://localhost:5173.

Running Tests

Backend: ```bash php artisan test ```

Frontend: ```bash cd frontend npm test ```

API Documentation

Full API specification is documented in openapi.json, including all endpoints, request/response schemas, and authentication requirements. This file can be imported directly into Postman or any compatible viewer.