How I Built a Visa Tracker with Django, Aurora PostgreSQL, and react

Short summary

VisaTrack automates visa document checklists using Gemini and tracks progress via Django/React on Vercel and Railway. The hardest part: Aurora's express config forces IAM authentication; solved with a custom Django backend generating short-lived tokens per connection. Key lessons: IAM auth is more secure than static credentials, serverless v2 has cold starts, and Django's pluggable backends enable powerful database customization.

• •Built AI-powered visa tracking app for hackathon using Django, React, Aurora PostgreSQL, and Google Gemini
• •Aurora express config forces IAM authentication; solved with custom Django backend generating short-lived tokens per connection
• •Key learnings: IAM auth more secure than static passwords, serverless cold starts are real, Django pluggable backends powerful for database customization

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