December 2024 monthly summary for Stray-Finder (csci-499-fa24). Focused on enhancing the notification experience and reducing hard dependencies to improve maintainability and readiness for upcoming features. Key features delivered include pinning of notifications by default, a dedicated match notification type, direct routing to relevant animal report posts when matches occur, updated notification metadata with matchedReportId, clickable links within match notifications, and a new endpoint to recreate pinned match notifications for consistency across users. Major bug fix implemented to remove a hardcoded admin user ID from AnimalReportProfile, reducing tight coupling and prepping for future user-management changes. These work items improve user-facing reliability, navigation efficiency, data integrity, and set the foundation for upcoming notification-driven capabilities. Technologies demonstrated include backend API design, data modeling for notification metadata, URL/link construction in messages, and endpoint development, backed by a commit trail showing iterative improvements.

November 2024 performance across csci-499-fa24/trip-trends and csci-499-fa24/Stray-Finder. Delivered multi-format data export, significant UI/UX enhancements, and strengthened authentication and collaboration features. Implemented robust notification and commenting systems, expanded pet reporting and filtering, and maintained repository hygiene to reduce risk and onboarding effort. The work focused on business value: reliable data exports for partners, improved visibility into expenses, secure and consistent access to profiles, richer team collaboration on animal reports, and a cleaner codebase.