AutoGurus

A premium automotive marketplace built from a static concept into a production-ready platform in under a week. The system combines a bilingual-ready Next.js storefront with a NestJS API, Prisma and MariaDB, backed by a full staff panel for inventory, media, lead management and secure publishing workflows.

2026-08

Visual Foundation

A static HTML/CSS/JS concept was finalized with the client and established as the visual foundation for the production platform.

2026-08

Architecture

The REST API contract, data model and application boundaries were defined first, allowing the storefront and staff panel to evolve against a stable backend foundation.

2026-08

Management Platform

Vehicle CRUD, media uploads, lead management, publishing states and secure JWT authentication were integrated into a single staff workflow.

2026-08

Production Launch

The completed platform was deployed to autogurusllc.com, with the NestJS API integrated behind the Next.js application through server-side rewrites.

›Built a two-application monorepo with a Next.js 16 App Router storefront and NestJS 11 REST API, both developed against a shared written API contract to keep the frontend, backend and data model aligned from the start.
›Delivered a complete staff panel for vehicle management, including CRUD operations, draft/published/sold states, multi-image uploads, lead management and controlled publishing workflows.
›Implemented secure authentication with argon2id password hashing and API-issued JWTs stored exclusively in httpOnly cookies through a Next.js route handler, keeping authentication tokens inaccessible to client-side JavaScript.
›Designed publication-aware API access so unpublished vehicles remain private while authorized staff can preview and manage drafts without exposing them through public storefront requests.
›Implemented tag-based caching for public inventory and targeted revalidation on administrative changes, keeping the storefront fast while ensuring updates from the staff panel become visible without stale content.
›Built a unified dark/light theme system around design tokens rather than duplicated component styles, with theme resolution before first paint to eliminate visible theme flashing.
›Migrated the production data layer from PostgreSQL to hosted MariaDB 10.6, adapting scalar-list fields to JSON and configuring Prisma 7 with an explicit MariaDB driver adapter.