9ja News API - Backend

The single source of truth for Nigerian news 🇳🇬

Overview

9ja News API is a Django-based REST API that aggregates news from major Nigerian news sources including Vanguard, Punch, and more. It provides a clean, simple interface for developers to access Nigerian news programmatically.

Features

• 📰 News Aggregation: Scrapes and serves news from multiple Nigerian sources
• 🔍 Search Functionality: Search across all news sources with keywords
• 📊 Categorization: Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Health
• 🔐 API Key Authentication: Secure access with rate limiting
• 📱 RESTful API: Clean JSON responses for easy integration
• 🕒 Real-time Updates: Fresh news content updated regularly

Quick Start with Docker

# Clone the repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd 9janewsapi/newsapi

# Start with Docker Compose
docker-compose up --build

# The API will be available at http://localhost:8000

Manual Setup

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+
• pip
• Virtual environment (recommended)

Installation

1. Create virtual environment

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

2. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Environment setup

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your configuration

4. Database setup

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

5. Run the server

python manage.py runserver

API Usage

Authentication

All API requests require an API key. Get yours by registering at the frontend application.

Base URL

https://api.api.9janewsapi.com.ng/api/

Endpoints

Get News by Category

GET /api/vanguard/apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}/{category}/

Categories: politics, business, entertainment, technology, sports, health

Example:

curl "https://api.api.9janewsapi.com.ng/api/vanguard/apikey=your_key_here/politics/"

Search News

GET /api/search/apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}/{search_term}

Example:

curl "https://api.api.9janewsapi.com.ng/api/search/apikey=your_key_here/president%20buhari"

Response Format

{
  "message": "Success!",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "unique_id",
      "title": "News headline",
      "summary": "Brief description of the news",
      "date": "2024-01-01",
      "photo": "https://image-url.com/image.jpg",
      "link": "https://full-article-url.com"
    }
  ]
}

Rate Limits

• Free Tier: 1000 requests per day
• Contact sales for higher limits

Development

Project Structure

newsapi/
├── api/                    # News scraping and API endpoints
├── users/                  # User management and API keys
├── newsapi/               # Django settings and config
├── requirements.txt       # Python dependencies
├── Dockerfile            # Docker configuration
├── docker-compose.yml    # Multi-container setup
└── manage.py             # Django management script

Adding New News Sources

1. Create a new scraper module in api/
2. Follow the pattern in vanguard.py
3. Add URL patterns in api/urls.py
4. Update documentation

Running Tests

python manage.py test

Code Style

We use Black for code formatting:

black .

Deployment

Docker Production

docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Environment Variables

SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
DEBUG=False
ALLOWED_HOSTS=yourdomain.com
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/dbname
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379/0

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests
5. Submit a pull request

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Support

• 📧 Email: support@9janews.com
• 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
• 📖 Docs: Full Documentation

Contribution Guidelines

Thank you for contributing to this project! 🎉
To keep our codebase clean and consistent, we follow a few simple rules for commits and branch names.

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📌 Commit Message Guidelines

We follow the Conventional Commits specification.

Format

():

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Common Types

• feat – a new feature
• fix – a bug fix
• docs – documentation changes
• style – formatting changes (no code impact)
• refactor – code restructuring without behavior change
• test – adding or updating tests
• chore – maintenance tasks

Examples

feat(auth): add Google login support fix(api): handle null user ID in profile endpoint docs(readme): update setup instructions

Rules

1. Use lowercase for types and scopes.
2. Keep the subject line short (≤ 72 characters).
3. Use the body to explain why the change was made, not just what.
4. Reference issues in the footer when relevant:

Closes #42

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🌱 Branch Naming Guidelines

We use a structured format for branch names:

/

Common Types

• feat/ – for new features
• fix/ – for bug fixes
• docs/ – for documentation updates
• chore/ – for maintenance tasks
• refactor/ – for code refactoring
• test/ – for adding/updating tests
• release/ – for release preparation

Rules

1. Use lowercase with hyphens (-) to separate words.
2. Keep it short but descriptive.
3. Match the branch type to the commit type when possible.

Examples

feat/add-user-auth fix/payment-timeout-bug docs/update-contributing-guide refactor/api-service-layer release/v1.2.0

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✅ Summary

• Branches describe what you’re working on.
• Commits describe what changed and why.
• Following these rules helps everyone understand the project history at a glance.

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👉 You can even enforce these rules automatically using tools like commitlint and husky.

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Made with ❤️ for the Nigerian developer community