Making a User Model

Making a User Model

A Mongoose model defines the structure of documents in a MongoDB collection. It tells MongoDB what data to store for each user.

The User Schema

// models/user-model.js
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const Schema = mongoose.Schema;

const userSchema = new Schema({
    username: String,
    googleId: String,
    thumbnail: String
});

const User = mongoose.model('user', userSchema);

module.exports = User;

Schema Fields

Field	Type	Purpose
username	String	The user's display name from Google
googleId	String	The unique ID Google assigns to the user
thumbnail	String	URL of the user's Google profile photo

Why googleId?

The googleId is unique to each Google account. When a user logs in again, you can look up their record by this ID instead of creating a duplicate. This is how you know if a user is new or returning.

How Mongoose Models Work

// Creating a new user
var newUser = new User({
    username: 'Shaun',
    googleId: '123456789',
    thumbnail: 'https://photo.url'
});

// Save to MongoDB
newUser.save().then(function(savedUser) {
    console.log('User saved:', savedUser);
});

// Find a user
User.findOne({ googleId: '123456789' }).then(function(user) {
    console.log('Found:', user);
});

Key Takeaways

• A Mongoose Schema defines the structure of documents in a collection
• mongoose.model('name', schema) creates a model you can use to read and write data
• Store the Google ID to identify returning users
• Models provide methods like save(), findOne(), and find() for database operations