Add auth API connections

[jzgom067]

What?

This PR finally starts connecting the frontend to the backend API.

.env File

A .env file was added to specify the backend URL. example.env was also added to help other developers get up to speed, with instructions in the README.

--experimental-https Added

The --experimental-https argument was added to the npm run dev script, so that cookies would work properly when testing locally.

formatApiError Util Function

This was created to turn the JSON error format from the backend into a single string. This makes it easy to just create an alert from the error message in case something goes wrong. See the implemented API calls for examples.

Actual API Functionality

API functionality was added to the following pages:

• Login
• Sign Up (actual registration + email resend on success)
• Verify Email
• Forgot Password
• Reset Password
• Dashboard (see below)

Temporary Logout Button

There's no account button (in this branch), so I put a temporary logout button on the dashboard page since there's nowhere else good for it. It will get removed when the account button is added.

Why?

A website is cool and all but what's the point without the backend data to support it?

How?

The fetch API works wonders.

Testing?

Some mild testing was done, but surely not much can go wrong for simple implementations like log in and sign up.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR connects the frontend authentication flows to the backend API, replacing mock implementations with actual HTTP requests. The changes enable proper user authentication, registration, email verification, and password management functionality.

• Added environment configuration and HTTPS support for local development
• Implemented API integration for all authentication flows (login, signup, email verification, password reset)
• Created a utility function to format backend error messages for user display

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 12 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
package.json	Added --experimental-https flag to dev script for local HTTPS support
next.config.ts	Added API rewrites to proxy backend requests and handle CORS
example.env	Added example environment file with API URL configuration
app/_utils/format-api-error.tsx	New utility to convert backend JSON errors to user-friendly strings
app/login/page.tsx	Replaced mock login with actual API call to /api/auth/login/
app/sign-up/page.tsx	Implemented real registration API call with proper validation
app/sign-up/email-sent/page.tsx	Added email resend functionality via API
app/verify-email/page.tsx	Replaced mock verification with actual API call
app/forgot-password/page.tsx	Implemented password reset request API integration
app/reset-password/page.tsx	Added actual password reset API call with token validation
app/dashboard/page.tsx	Added temporary logout button with API integration
README.md	Added environment setup instructions

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[mirmirmirr]

👍