What is pulseboard-backend?

PulseBoard-backend is the server side half of PulseBoard, a poll creation and management application. It handles everything behind the scenes: storing polls and user accounts in a database, verifying identities, accepting votes, and returning results. The API is organized into two main areas. The auth area manages registration, login, logout, email verification, and password resets, all standard account operations. The poll area lets authenticated users create polls with questions and options, then allows anyone, including anonymous visitors depending on poll settings, to fetch poll details, submit votes, and view analytics such as results and statistics. A soft-auth mechanism means the server will read a user token if one is present for tracking purposes, but will not block visitors who have none, giving poll creators flexibility over who can respond. The backend is built with Node.js and Express, uses PostgreSQL as its database through Drizzle ORM, a tool that translates code into database queries, and is written in TypeScript. Validation of incoming data runs through Zod schemas. The folder structure separates auth and poll logic into self-contained modules, each with its own routing, business logic, and database query files, which makes it straightforward to find and modify any particular feature. You would use this project as the API layer when building a polling or survey tool, connecting it to a frontend that handles the visual interface.