AGN-DB Platform Modernization

This semester, our team undertook the restoration and modernization of the AGN-DB website, a platform that interfaces with a large astrophysical catalog hosted on the University of Miami’s ACORN network. The project aimed to revitalize the site’s ability to query, visualize, and export data from a MariaDB-backed SQL table. To accomplish this, we refactored the backend using FastAPI, replacing the older Express.js middleware. FastAPI enabled asynchronous request handling and type-safe endpoint definitions, improving both performance and developer experience. In particular, we implemented a hybrid CQRS–Repository pattern in the backend to improve code readability and support future scalability. In addition, we began the early stages of exploring a future migration toward a normalized database schema and sketched an initial ERD to support modular catalog design, which will be easily implemented due to the new backend design. The frontend was rebuilt from scratch using modern React.js practices, replacing outdated and non-functional code with a cleaner, more reliable implementation. We improved the overall user experience of the querying process with quality-of-life updates to facilitate the data retrieval process. To simplify development and ensure consistency across environments, we containerized the application using Docker, allowing for easier local builds, deployment, and future scalability. While substantial progress has been made, the website remains in its prototype phase and is not yet ready or tested for live deployment.