Aleya

Aleya is a journaling and mentorship platform that pairs reflective prompts with mentor support. The repository hosts an Express + PostgreSQL API (backend/) and a React client (frontend/). This refresh tidies the repository layout, adds automated quality checks, and documents how to grow the grove together.

Demo

A live demo is available here: Demo App

Important notes

• The demo server may be offline at times (it is rebuilt daily).
• All data is reset once per day — do not use it for important storage.
• The demo is provided for evaluation and testing purposes only.

Landing Page

Mobile Layout Screenshots

Table of contents

• Aleya
  • Demo
    • Landing Page
    • Mobile Layout Screenshots
  • Table of contents
  • Architecture
  • Getting started
  • Running the backend
    • Mentor digest job
  • Running the frontend
  • Quality gates
  • Testing
  • Environment & configuration
  • Project documentation
  • Contributing
  • License

Architecture

.
├── backend/            # Express API, PostgreSQL helpers, automated jobs
│   ├── src/            # Application source code
│   ├── tests/          # Jest unit tests
│   └── docs/           # Schema references and backend-specific guides
├── frontend/           # React application powered by CRA + Tailwind
├── docs/               # Living knowledge base (Wiki, theme showcase, features)
├── .github/workflows/  # Continuous integration pipelines
├── docker-compose.yml  # Optional local orchestration for backend + frontend
└── README.md

Key product personas:

• Journalers cultivate habits through poetic, mood-aware prompts.
• Mentors guide journalers with dashboards, digests, and panic alerts.
• Administrators steward forms, relationships, and health metrics.

Core highlights include mutual-consent mentor linking, mood analytics, panic support, and a dashboard suite for each role. The retired in-app notification system has been replaced with transactional email flows.

Getting started

Clone the repository and install dependencies for both packages.

git clone <repository-url>
cd Aleya

# Backend setup
cd backend
npm install

# Frontend setup (in a separate shell)
cd frontend
npm install

Node.js 18+ is recommended for parity with the Docker images and CI pipeline.

Running the backend

cd backend
cp .env-sample .env   # populate with your database + SMTP credentials
npm run dev           # start the API with Nodemon

The server boots from backend/src/index.js, validates SMTP credentials via src/utils/email.js, and initialises the platform if seed credentials are provided. API routes live under src/routes/ and reuse shared middleware, services, and utilities.

Mentor digest job

npm run mentor-digest

Dispatches mentor digest emails for the configured look-back window. Update the MENTOR_DIGEST_WINDOW_HOURS environment variable to tweak the range.

Running the frontend

cd frontend
cp .env-sample .env    # configure API origin and feature flags
npm start              # run the React development server

The client leans on shared Tailwind tokens defined in frontend/src/index.css. Admin dashboards reuse the responsive table tokens documented in frontend/AGENTS.md.

Quality gates

Automated checks live in .github/workflows/ci.yml and run on every push or pull request:

• npm run format:check – ensures Prettier formatting for backend sources/tests.
• npm run lint – ESLint (recommended + Prettier) for backend code.
• npm test – Jest unit tests for backend utilities.

Run them locally before you push:

cd backend
npm run format:check
npm run lint
npm test

Frontend testing remains available through npm test inside the frontend/ directory.

Testing

Unit tests live under backend/tests/ and currently cover shared helpers such as src/utils/mood.js. Add new tests alongside the modules you touch. Test output is written to backend/coverage/ (ignored by Git).

Integration tests can be added with Jest + Supertest; wire them into the backend/tests/ tree and update the CI workflow accordingly.

Environment & configuration

• backend/.env-sample documents required credentials for the API, including PostgreSQL, JWT, logging, and SMTP settings.
• frontend/.env-sample lists client configuration such as the API base URL.
• Docker users can run docker compose up --build to orchestrate both services (PostgreSQL is expected to be provisioned separately).

Project documentation

• docs/Wiki.md – running history of architectural and feature decisions.
• docs/features.md – product capabilities and future opportunities.
• docs/theme.html – static showcase of Tailwind tokens shared by the UI.
• Package-specific AGENTS.md files capture conventions for each area; update them whenever you introduce new patterns.

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for the full workflow, coding standards, and review expectations. Community expectations are outlined in the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

Highlights:

• Keep backend code in src/ and add Jest tests beside the behaviour you change.
• Update the wiki (docs/Wiki.md) and relevant AGENTS.md files with every substantial change.
• Run the quality gates (format, lint, test) before requesting review.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.