Blind App

Anonymous Community App for College Students

---

Table of Contents

• Features
• Quickstart
• Tech Stack
• System Design
• Documentation
• Community & Contributing
• License

---

Features

• Anonymous Interaction: Post, comment, and reply without revealing your real identity.
• College-Verified Community: Exclusively for students with a valid @oriental.ac.in email address.
• Secure Authentication: Custom JWT-based authentication flow with an OTP (One-Time Password) verification system.
• Content Moderation: Built-in filter to detect and block inappropriate content in posts and comments.
• Replies & Likes: Supports nested comment replies and liking comments.
• Theming: Dark and light mode support.
• Real-time Notifications (Planned): Functionality to receive push notifications for interactions.

Quickstart

# Clone the repo
$ git clone https://github.com/NalinDalal/blind-app.git
 
$ cd blind-app

# Install dependencies
$ npm install

# Setup environment variables
$ cp .env.example .env.local
# Edit .env.local with your PostgreSQL and SendGrid credentials

# Setup database
$ npx prisma generate
$ npx prisma db push
$ npm run db:seed

# Start development server
$ npm run dev

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js (App Router)
• Language: Typescript
• Backend: Next.js API Routes
• Database: PostgreSQL with Prisma ORM
• Authentication:
  • bcryptjs - password hashing
  • OTPauth - TOTP/OTP generation & verification
  • jsonwebtoken - issue and verify JWT access & refresh tokens
• State Management:
  • Client State: Redux Toolkit (for auth state)
  • Server State: TanStack Query (for data fetching, caching, and mutations)
• UI: React 19, TailwindCSS
• Form Handling: React Hook Form with Zod for validation
• Email Service: SendGrid
• Deployment: Docker

System Design

The following diagram illustrates the overall architecture of Blind App:

flowchart TD
  subgraph Client["📱 Client (Web App)"]
    U[User Interface]
    AuthUI[Login & Verification Screen]
    FeedUI[Discussion Feed]
    PostUI[Post/Comment Screen]
    NotifUI[Notification Panel]
  end

  subgraph Backend["☁️ Backend (Next.js API Routes)"]
    API[API Gateway]
    AuthService[Authentication Service]
    AnonService[Anonymity Layer]
    FeedService[Feed & Post Service]
    NotifService[Notification Service]
    ModerationService[Content Moderation]
  end

  subgraph Verification["🎓 Student Verification"]
    EmailCheck[College Email Verification]
  end

  subgraph DataStore["🗄️ Data Stores (PostgreSQL)"]
    UserDB[(User Database)]
    PostDB[(Posts & Comments DB)]
    AnonMapDB[(Anon Identity Mapping)]
    NotifDB[(Notification Store)]
    LogDB[(Audit Logs)]
  end

subgraph Ext["🌐 External Services"]
EmailAPI[Email/OTP Provider]
end

%% Client connections
U --> AuthUI
U --> FeedUI
U --> PostUI
U --> NotifUI

%% Flow: Auth & Verification
AuthUI --> API --> AuthService
AuthService --> Verification
Verification --> EmailCheck --> EmailAPI
AuthService --> UserDB

%% Flow: Anonymity
PostUI --> API --> AnonService
AnonService --> AnonMapDB
AnonService --> FeedService

%% Flow: Feed & Posts
FeedUI --> API --> FeedService
FeedService --> PostDB

%% Flow: Moderation
FeedService --> ModerationService
ModerationService --> LogDB

%% Flow: Notifications
NotifService --> NotifDB
API --> NotifUI
NotifService --> API

Loading

Documentation

• API Reference
• System Architecture
• Component Docs
• Contributing Guide
• Roadmap
• OpenAPI Spec

Community & Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please read our Contributing Guide and Roadmap for details.

• Open Issues
• Discussions

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.