Environment Variables

Create a .env file in news-server/ with the variables below before starting the server.

Variable	Required	Format	Purpose
PORT	Yes	Number	HTTP port for the Express server
MONGODB_URI	Yes	MongoDB URI	Primary database connection string
JWT_SECRET	Yes	Secret string	Signs and verifies JWT tokens
API_KEY	Yes	Opaque token	Authenticates child-site API requests
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	For S3	AWS key ID string	AWS auth for S3 signed URL generation
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	For S3	AWS secret string	AWS auth for S3 signed URL generation
AWS_REGION	For S3	Region (e.g. eu-north-1)	S3 bucket region
S3_BUCKET	For S3	Bucket name string	Target S3 bucket for uploads
S3_ENDPOINT	Optional	URL	Custom S3-compatible endpoint override

Tip

For local development without S3 uploads, you can omit the AWS variables. The /api/v1/sign-s3 endpoint will fail, but all other routes will work normally.