🚀 Building Dynamic Profile API (Stage 0 Backend Challenge)

---

Hey everyone 👋
I just completed Stage 0 of the Backend Track, and I’m super excited to share what I built, what I learned, and how it helped me grow as a developer!

🧩 The Task

The challenge was to create a dynamic RESTful API that returns:

My profile details (name, email, and backend stack)

A random cat fact fetched in real time from the Cat Facts API

A current UTC timestamp in ISO 8601 format

Here’s the live endpoint:
👉 https://stage0-profile-api-production-053c.up.railway.app/me

🛠️ Tools & Technologies

Node.js + Express — for building the REST API

Axios — for consuming the external Cat Facts API

Railway — for deployment and hosting

GitHub — for version control and documentation

🧠 What I Learned

This simple project taught me a lot about:

How to create clean, structured API endpoints

Making dynamic API calls using Axios

Handling errors gracefully when fetching from third-party APIs

Deploying Node.js applications to a production server

The importance of good JSON formatting and timestamps

I also got to understand how environment configuration, deployment logs, and API testing come together in real-world backend development.

🐾 The Final Output

Here’s a sample response from my /me endpoint:

{
  "status": "success",
  "user": {
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "name": "Karons [Your Last Name]",
    "stack": "Node.js / Express"
  },
  "timestamp": "2025-10-20T09:00:00.000Z",
  "fact": "Cats have five toes on their front paws but only four on the back ones."
}

💡 Reflection

This task might look simple, but it built a strong foundation — understanding APIs, data flow, deployment, and error handling.
Each small step (from initializing the project, setting up Express, to debugging on Railway) boosted my confidence and speed in backend development.

Next stop → Stage 1, where I’ll be building something more complex! ⚙️

If you’re just starting out, I recommend trying something similar. It’s small but incredibly powerful for mastering the basics of backend engineering.