Mindmeld

Multiplayer party games that bring people together through shared thinking.

Stack

• Go - Server
• templ - Type-safe HTML templates
• HTMX - Frontend interactivity (coming soon)
• Tailwind CSS - Styling
• PostgreSQL - Database
• Air - Hot reload for development

Prerequisites

• Go 1.25+
• Docker (for PostgreSQL)
• Tailwind CSS CLI - download the standalone binary for your platform and add to PATH as tailwindcss

Getting Started

# Copy environment config
cp .env.example .env.local

# Start PostgreSQL
make db-up

# Run migrations
make migrate

# Build CSS
make css

# Start dev server with hot reload
make dev

Open http://localhost:3000 to see the app.

Available Commands

Command	Description
make dev	Start server with hot reload
make run	Run server directly
make build	Build production binary
make templ	Generate templ templates
make css	Build Tailwind CSS
make css-watch	Watch and rebuild CSS
make db-up	Start PostgreSQL container
make db-down	Stop PostgreSQL container
make migrate	Run database migrations
make clean	Remove build artifacts

Project Structure

mindmeld/
├── cmd/server/main.go    # Server entrypoint
├── templates/            # templ templates (*.templ source files)
├── static/css/           # Tailwind CSS
├── tools.go              # Pinned tool versions
├── Makefile              # Build commands
├── .air.toml             # Hot reload config
├── docker-compose.yml    # Local dev PostgreSQL
└── Dockerfile            # Production build

Docker Files

File	Purpose	When to use
docker-compose.yml	Local Postgres only	make db-up for local dev with hot reload
Dockerfile	Production app build	DO App Platform, or test locally with docker build

Why separate? Local dev runs Go directly with Air for hot reload. The Dockerfile is for production builds. Combining them would sacrifice hot reload for no benefit.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string
PORT	Server port (default: 8080)

Optional AI Question Assist

Trivia question generation can use OpenRouter when configured. If these vars are not set, the app falls back to the local question generator.

Variable	Description
OPEN_ROUTER_KEY	Required for live AI question generation via OpenRouter
AI_QUESTION_ASSIST_PROVIDER	Optional explicit provider selector. Set to openrouter to force OpenRouter
OPEN_ROUTER_MODEL	Optional model override. Current default is google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview
OPEN_ROUTER_HTTP_REFERER	Optional but recommended app/site URL sent to OpenRouter
OPEN_ROUTER_TITLE	Optional display name sent to OpenRouter. Defaults to Mindmeld

Local example:

AI_QUESTION_ASSIST_PROVIDER=openrouter
OPEN_ROUTER_KEY=your-openrouter-key
OPEN_ROUTER_MODEL=google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview
OPEN_ROUTER_HTTP_REFERER=http://localhost:3000
OPEN_ROUTER_TITLE=Mindmeld

Deployment

Digital Ocean App Platform

Deploys via Dockerfile. The Dockerfile handles all code generation (templ, sqlc, Tailwind) at build time, so generated files are not committed to git.

Test the Docker build locally:

# Build the image
docker build -t mindmeld .

# Run it (with local Postgres via docker-compose)
make db-up
docker run -p 8080:8080 -e DATABASE_URL="postgres://mindmeld:mindmeld@host.docker.internal:5432/mindmeld" mindmeld

DO App Platform setup:

1. Connect your GitHub repo
2. DO auto-detects the Dockerfile
3. Add a managed Postgres database
4. Set DATABASE_URL env var (auto-injected from managed Postgres)
5. If you want live AI trivia generation in production, set:
   • OPEN_ROUTER_KEY
   • AI_QUESTION_ASSIST_PROVIDER=openrouter (optional, but explicit)
   • OPEN_ROUTER_MODEL=google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview if you want to pin the current default
   • OPEN_ROUTER_HTTP_REFERER=https://your-production-domain
   • OPEN_ROUTER_TITLE=Mindmeld
6. HTTP Port: 8080

If OPEN_ROUTER_KEY is not configured in production, trivia AI assist still works through the built-in local fallback generator.

Migrations:

Run migrations against production DB after deploy (run goose directly to avoid .env.local override):

go run github.com/pressly/goose/v3/cmd/goose -dir migrations postgres "your-prod-connection-string" up