Pokémon Voting System

A minimal, production‑deployed LAMP-style voting application built with PHP, Apache, PostgreSQL, and Docker. Users are presented with two random Pokémon and vote for their preferred choice. Votes are persisted and reflected in a live leaderboard.

This project demonstrates:

• Dockerized PHP + Apache setup
• Managed PostgreSQL integration (Render)
• Environment-based configuration
• Server-rendered PHP architecture
• Production deployment workflow

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🚀 Live Application

Deployed on Render (Web Service + Managed PostgreSQL).

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🏗 Architecture

Stack

• PHP 8.2 (Apache)
• PostgreSQL 15
• Docker (local development)
• Render (production hosting)

Application Structure

src/
  app/              # Domain logic (optional expansion area)
  config/           # Database configuration
  public/           # Public web root (Apache document root)
  scripts/          # CLI-only utilities (optional)

 docker/
   php/             # Dockerfile for Apache + PHP

 data/              # Local seed data (not deployed)

Only the public/ directory is exposed to the web server in production.

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⚙️ Local Development

1️⃣ Start Docker

docker compose up -d

2️⃣ Access Application

http://localhost:8080

3️⃣ Access PostgreSQL

docker compose exec db psql -U postgres -d pokedex

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🗄 Database Setup

Run Schema

psql "postgres://user:pass@host:5432/dbname" -f schema.sql

Or inside psql:

\i schema.sql

Seed Data

Seeding is performed via CLI-only scripts using JSON data stored outside the web root.

Seed files are intentionally not exposed publicly.

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🌎 Production Deployment (Render)

Environment Variable

Set the following in Render:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host:5432/dbname

The application automatically detects and parses DATABASE_URL for production.

Important

• Do NOT use localhost as DB host in production.
• Use Render's Internal Database URL.
• Clear build cache on deploy if Dockerfile changes.

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🔐 Security Considerations

• .env is excluded via .gitignore
• Seed routes are not publicly accessible
• Production DB credentials are stored in Render environment variables
• Only public/ is served by Apache

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📈 Future Improvements

Potential enhancements:

• Elo rating system
• Vote rate limiting
• Session/IP tracking
• Analytics dashboard
• AJAX-based voting (no page reload)
• Caching leaderboard queries

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🎯 Purpose

This project serves as a hands-on exploration of:

• Backend architecture fundamentals
• Containerization
• Production database configuration
• Infrastructure-aware development

It is intentionally framework-light to emphasize core concepts.

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🧪 Development Notes

• Volumes are used locally for hot reloading.
• Production builds copy src/ directly into the container.
• Seeder utilities remain outside the web root.

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📝 License

This project is for educational and portfolio purposes. Pokémon data sourced from PokéAPI.

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Built as a full-stack learning project exploring modern deployment patterns using traditional server-rendered architecture.