🎓 MentorStack

MentorStack is a comprehensive mentorship and knowledge-sharing platform designed to connect aspiring developers with experienced mentors. Built with modern technologies, it facilitates learning through Q&A, articles, communities, real-time chat, and AI-powered assistance.

---

✨ Features

🤝 Mentorship System

• Mentor-Mentee Matching: Connect mentees with experienced mentors based on skills and interests
• Request Management: Send, accept, or reject mentorship requests
• Real-time Chat: WebSocket-powered private messaging between mentors and mentees
• Connection Tracking: Manage active mentorship relationships

❓ Q&A Platform

• Ask & Answer: Post questions and provide detailed answers
• Voting System: Upvote/downvote questions and answers
• Answer Validation: AI-powered answer quality assessment
• Bookmarking: Save important questions for later reference
• Tags: Organize questions with relevant tags

📝 Articles & Knowledge Sharing

• Article Publishing: Write and share technical articles with rich formatting
• Image Support: Upload images via Cloudinary integration
• Categories & Tags: Organize content by topics
• Voting & Engagement: Upvote quality content
• Bookmarking: Save articles to your collection

💬 Communities

• Create Communities: Build topic-specific communities
• Discussion Posts: Share ideas and engage with community members
• Member Management: Join communities and manage memberships
• Tags & Organization: Categorize community posts
• Real-time Discussions: WebSocket-powered community chat

🤖 AI Features

• AI Chatbot: Get instant answers powered by Google Gemini AI
• Answer Summarization: Automatically summarize multiple answers
• Answer Validation: AI assessment of answer quality and relevance
• Similar Questions: Find related questions using AI
• Content Rephrasing: Improve your writing with AI assistance
• Spell Checking: Real-time spelling corrections

🏆 Gamification

• Reputation System: Earn points for helpful contributions
• Badges: Unlock achievements based on reputation milestones
• Activity Tracking: Monitor your reputation history
• Leaderboard: Compare your progress with others

🎨 User Experience

• Fully Responsive: Mobile-first design that works on all devices
• GSAP Animations: Smooth, intuitive animations throughout the app
• Dark Mode Support: Custom CSS variables for theming
• Profile Customization: Upload avatars, manage bio, skills, and more
• Bookmarks Management: Organize saved questions, articles, and posts

---

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        Frontend (Next.js 15)                     │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐       │
│  │  Pages   │  │Components│  │  Utils   │  │  Hooks   │       │
│  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              ↓ ↑ HTTPS / WebSocket
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Backend (Express + TypeScript)               │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐       │
│  │  Routes  │  │Middleware│  │WebSocket │  │  Prisma  │       │
│  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              ↓ ↑
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      Message Queue (RabbitMQ)                    │
│         AI Request Queue  →  Chatbot Agent Worker               │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              ↓ ↑
┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐
│   PostgreSQL    │  │   Cloudinary    │  │  Google Gemini  │
│   (Neon.tech)   │  │  (Image CDN)    │  │   (AI Model)    │
└─────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘

Tech Stack

Frontend

• Framework: Next.js 15.5.6 (App Router)
• UI Library: React 19.0.0
• Language: TypeScript 5.x
• Styling: Tailwind CSS 4.x
• Animations: GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform)
• State Management: React Hooks & Context
• HTTP Client: Fetch API with custom auth wrapper
• Image Handling: Next.js Image component

Backend

• Runtime: Node.js 20.x
• Framework: Express.js 5.1.0
• Language: TypeScript 5.8.3
• Database ORM: Prisma 6.15.0
• Authentication: JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
• Real-time: WebSocket (ws library)
• Message Queue: RabbitMQ via amqplib
• File Upload: Multer with Cloudinary storage
• AI Integration: Google Generative AI (Gemini)

Database

• Primary Database: PostgreSQL (hosted on Neon.tech)
• ORM: Prisma with 26+ relational models
• Migrations: Prisma Migrate

Infrastructure

• Frontend Hosting: Vercel (Auto-deployment from GitHub)
• Backend Hosting: Render.com (Docker container)
• Chatbot Agent: Render.com (Background worker)
• Database: Neon.tech (Serverless PostgreSQL)
• Message Broker: CloudAMQP (RabbitMQ managed service)
• CDN: Cloudinary (Image storage and optimization)

---

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js: v20.x or higher
• npm: v10.x or higher
• PostgreSQL: Database instance (local or cloud)
• RabbitMQ: Message broker instance
• Git: Version control

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/Major-Project-26/mentorstack.git
   cd mentorstack

2. Install dependencies

   Frontend:

   cd frontend
   npm install

   Backend:

   cd backend
   npm install

   Chatbot Agent:

   cd chatbot-agent
   npm install

3. Environment Configuration

   Frontend (.env.local):

   NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

   Backend (.env):

   # Database
   DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/mentorstack
   
   # JWT
   JWT_SECRET=your-super-secret-jwt-key-here
   
   # Cloudinary
   CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=your-cloud-name
   CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=your-api-key
   CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=your-api-secret
   
   # Google Gemini AI
   GEMINI_API_KEY=your-gemini-api-key
   
   # RabbitMQ
   RABBITMQ_URL=amqp://localhost:5672

   Chatbot Agent (.env):

   BACKEND_API_URL=http://localhost:5000
   RABBITMQ_URL=amqp://localhost:5672
   GEMINI_API_KEY=your-gemini-api-key

4. Database Setup

   cd backend
   
   # Generate Prisma client
   npx prisma generate
   
   # Run migrations
   npx prisma migrate dev
   
   # Seed database (optional)
   npx prisma db seed

5. Run the Application

   Terminal 1 - Backend:

   cd backend
   npm run dev

   Terminal 2 - Frontend:

   cd frontend
   npm run dev

   Terminal 3 - Chatbot Agent:

   cd chatbot-agent
   node agent.js

6. Access the Application

   • Frontend: http://localhost:3000
   • Backend API: http://localhost:5000
   • Backend Health: http://localhost:5000/health

---

📁 Project Structure

mentorstack/
├── frontend/                 # Next.js frontend application
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── app/             # App router pages
│   │   ├── components/      # Reusable React components
│   │   ├── lib/             # Utilities and API client
│   │   └── utils/           # Helper functions
│   ├── public/              # Static assets
│   └── package.json
│
├── backend/                 # Express.js backend API
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── routes/         # API route handlers
│   │   ├── middleware/     # Auth and validation middleware
│   │   ├── lib/            # Database and external services
│   │   └── realtime/       # WebSocket and RabbitMQ logic
│   ├── prisma/
│   │   ├── schema.prisma   # Database schema
│   │   ├── migrations/     # Database migrations
│   │   └── seed.ts         # Database seeding script
│   └── package.json
│
├── chatbot-agent/           # AI chatbot worker
│   ├── agent.js            # Main worker process
│   └── package.json
│
├── docker-compose.yml       # Local development services
└── README.md               # This file

---

🔑 Key Features Implementation

Authentication Flow

1. User registers with email, password, and role (mentor/mentee)
2. JWT token generated on successful login
3. Token stored in localStorage and sent with each API request
4. Middleware validates token and attaches user info to request

Real-time Communication

• WebSocket Server: Handles connections for chat and AI responses
• RabbitMQ: Asynchronous message processing for AI requests
• Pub/Sub Pattern: Efficient message distribution

Database Models

• 26+ Prisma models including:
  • User management (Users, Roles)
  • Mentorship (Requests, Connections, Conversations, Messages)
  • Content (Questions, Answers, Articles, Communities, Posts)
  • Engagement (Votes, Bookmarks, Tags)
  • Gamification (Badges, Reputation History)
  • AI Logs

API Endpoints

• /api/auth - Authentication (login, register)
• /api/users - User management
• /api/questions - Q&A operations
• /api/articles - Article CRUD
• /api/communities - Community management
• /api/chat - Messaging and AI chat
• /api/badges - Badge system
• /api/upload - File uploads
• /api/bookmarks - Bookmark management

---

🚀 Deployment

Production URLs

• Frontend: https://mentorstack.vercel.app

---

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

---

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

---

👥 Team

Major-Project-26 Team

• Full-stack development
• UI/UX design
• Database architecture
• AI integration

---

Built with ❤️ by the MentorStack Team