📌 Building a Dynamic Profile API Endpoint: My HNG Stage Zero Journey

#webdev #node #hng13 #backenddevelopment

I'm excited to share my latest project as part of the HNG Internship Stage Zero task! I built a simple yet functional REST API endpoint that serves dynamic content. This project helped me apply my backend development skills using Node.js and Express.

🚀 Project Overview

I created a /me endpoint that returns:

My personal information
Current UTC timestamp
A random cat fact that changes with each request

Here's what the response looks like:

{
  "status": "success",
  "user": {
    "email": "emmanueludodirim4@gmail.com",
    "name": "Emmanuel Udodirim",
    "stack": "Node.js/Express"
  },
  "timestamp": "2025-10-17T07:37:07Z",
  "fact": "Cats have 32 muscles in each ear."
}

💻 Tech Stack & Implementation

For this project, I used:

Node.js/Express: For creating the RESTful API
Axios: For fetching external data from Cat Facts API
Railway: For deployment and hosting

The implementation involved:

const express = require('express');
const axios = require('axios');
const app = express();

// GET /me endpoint
app.get('/me', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    // Fetch cat fact from external API
    const catFactResponse = await axios.get('https://catfact.ninja/fact', {
      timeout: 5000 // 5 second timeout
    });

    // Create response object
    const response = {
      status: 'success',
      user: {
        email: process.env.USER_EMAIL || 'emmanueludodirim4@gmail.com',
        name: process.env.USER_NAME || 'Emmanuel Udodirim',
        stack: process.env.USER_STACK || 'Node.js/Express'
      },
      timestamp: new Date().toISOString(), // Current UTC time in ISO 8601
      fact: catFactResponse.data.fact
    };

    res.status(200).json(response);
  } catch (error) {
    // Error handling
  }
});