Neplance — Freelancing Marketplace for Nepal

A full-stack freelancing platform built for the Nepali market, supporting both digital remote work and on-site physical jobs — with blockchain-backed contracts as a trust layer for milestone payments and tamper-resistant agreement history.

Live demo: neplance.vercel.app

Why Neplance

Existing freelancing platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com) are built for an international, digital-only workforce. They don't serve Nepal's reality, where:

• A lot of skilled work is on-site and physical (electricians, carpenters, plumbers, photographers, event staff)
• Trust between strangers is the single biggest barrier to remote-arranged work
• International payment rails are friction-heavy for both clients and freelancers

Neplance addresses both. It supports digital and on-site job posting in one unified flow, and it uses blockchain-anchored contracts (Foedus) so that every agreement and milestone payout is verifiable and tamper-resistant — solving the trust problem without relying on a centralized escrow company.

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Demo Access

Client account:
  Email:    maya@email.com  
  Password: password123

Freelancer account:
  Email:    daya@email.com  
  Password: password123

You can also register your own account from the signup page.

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Features

For Clients

• Post jobs (digital or on-site) with budget, skills required, location, and deadline
• Receive and compare proposals from freelancers
• Hire and sign milestone-based contracts
• Track work progress and release milestone payments
• Rate and review freelancers post-completion

For Freelancers

• Browse and filter jobs by category, location, type (remote vs on-site), and budget
• Submit tailored proposals with cover letters and bid amounts
• Manage active contracts and milestones from a single dashboard
• Build a reputation through verified job completions and client ratings

Platform-Wide

• JWT-based authentication with secure refresh-token rotation
• Role-based access control separating client and freelancer permissions
• Blockchain-anchored contracts via the custom Foedus chain — every signed agreement and milestone payout produces an on-chain record with a verifiable hash
• In-app messaging between clients and freelancers
• Profile management with skills, portfolio, and verification badges

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js, React, Tailwind CSS
Backend	Node.js, Express
Database	MongoDB (Mongoose ODM)
Auth	JWT with refresh-token rotation
Contracts	Foedus — custom blockchain for contract anchoring
Deployment	Vercel (frontend), [add backend host]

Backend architecture highlights:

• 20+ REST endpoints organized by domain (auth, jobs, proposals, contracts, users, messages)
• Mongoose schemas for users (client / freelancer discriminator), jobs, proposals, contracts, milestones, and messages
• Middleware-driven auth with role guards on protected routes
• Modular controller pattern keeping route handlers thin and business logic testable

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Local Setup

Requirements: Node.js 18+, MongoDB connection string

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/dibyaadhikaree/Neplance.git
cd Neplance

2. Install frontend and backend

# Frontend
cd client
npm install

# Backend
cd ../server
npm install

3. Set up environment variables

server/.env:

MONGODB_URI=your_mongo_connection_string
JWT_ACCESS_SECRET=your_access_secret
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=your_refresh_secret
PORT=5000

client/.env.local:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

4. Run both servers

# Terminal 1 - backend
cd server && npm run dev

# Terminal 2 - frontend
cd client && npm run dev

Frontend runs on http://localhost:3000, backend on http://localhost:5000.

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Architecture

              ┌────────────────────────┐
              │     Client (Next.js)   │
              │                        │
              │  - Server Components   │
              │  - Tailwind UI         │
              │  - JWT in HTTP-only    │
              │    cookies             │
              └────────────┬───────────┘
                           │ REST
                           ▼
              ┌────────────────────────┐
              │   Backend (Express)    │
              │                        │
              │  - Auth middleware     │
              │  - Role guards         │
              │  - Modular controllers │
              └─────┬──────────────┬───┘
                    │              │
                    ▼              ▼
            ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐
            │   MongoDB    │  │    Foedus    │
            │              │  │  Blockchain  │
            │  Users       │  │              │
            │  Jobs        │  │  Contract    │
            │  Proposals   │  │  hashes      │
            │  Contracts   │  │  Milestone   │
            │  Messages    │  │  events      │
            └──────────────┘  └──────────────┘

Data flow for a contract:

1. Client accepts a freelancer's proposal → Express creates a Contract document in MongoDB
2. Contract terms are hashed and the hash is anchored on the Foedus blockchain → tx ID is stored on the Contract document
3. When a milestone is paid out, the payout event is also anchored on-chain
4. Either party can later verify the contract has not been altered by recomputing the hash and comparing against the on-chain record

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Team & My Contributions

Neplance was a final-year capstone project built by a team. My ownership covered:

• Frontend architecture — Next.js App Router, page-level data flow, all client- and server-rendered routes
• Backend architecture — Express server structure, 20+ REST endpoints, Mongoose schema design, JWT auth with refresh-token rotation, role-based middleware
• Integration with the Foedus blockchain layer — wiring the contract-signing and milestone payout flows to the on-chain anchoring service built by my teammates

The custom Foedus blockchain itself was built by teammates specialized in distributed systems.

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