ProjectPilot 🚀

An AI-Powered Project Recommendation & Planning Platform that helps students and developers discover project ideas, generate comprehensive technical synopses, extract ready-to-paste developer prompts, and map execution timelines.

Built using the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) with Vite, Tailwind CSS, and React Query, designed to look and feel like a premium, funded AI SaaS application.

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Key Features

• Personalized Recommendations: Discovers projects matching your exact skill set and interest areas, with custom-calculated Feasibility Scores.
• Swappable AI Service Layer: Abstracted backend integration that interfaces with Google Gemini API (using gemini-1.5-flash) when keys are present, and falls back to structured template interpolation otherwise.
• AI Synopsis Generator: Produces complete project proposals containing abstract, problem statements, detailed objectives, deliverables, and limits.
• AI Prompt Generator: Creates ready-to-paste instruction prompts specifically optimized for Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor workflows.
• Visual Timelines: Maps project milestones and estimated durations in a timeline roadmap.
• Bookmarks & Comparison Matrix: Pin candidate projects and compare up to three projects side-by-side.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Choice
Frontend	React (Vite), Tailwind CSS v3, React Router DOM v6, Axios, React Query (TanStack Query v5), Lucide Icons
Backend	Node.js, Express.js (ES Modules)
Database	MongoDB + Mongoose
Auth	JWT (15m Access Token + 7d Database-verified Refresh Token rotation), bcryptjs
Validation	Zod Schema Validation
Testing	Vitest, Supertest

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Setup & Running Locally

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• MongoDB running locally (default: mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/projectpilot)

Installation

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the project directory:

   cd ProjectPilot

2. Install root and package workspace dependencies:

   npm install
   npm run install:all

3. Configure Environment Variables: Create a .env file in the backend/ directory matching the variables in backend/.env.example:

   PORT=5000
   MONGODB_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/projectpilot
   JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_access_secret_here
   JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=your_jwt_refresh_secret_here
   NODE_ENV=development
   GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key_here  # Optional: falls back to template seeder if omitted

4. Seed the Database: Populate initial project templates:

   node backend/scripts/seed.js

5. Run Development Servers: Launch backend (port 5000) and frontend (port 5173) concurrently:

   npm run dev

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Testing

Run the Vitest integration suite on the backend to test authentication, registration validation, and secure session route-guards:

npm run test --prefix backend

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Architecture Design

graph TD
  User([Client Browser]) -->|Vite Proxy| Express[Express Server]
  Express -->|authMiddleware| AuthRouter[Auth Router]
  Express -->|projectQuery| ProjectRouter[Projects Router]
  Express -->|protect| AIRouter[AI Router]
  
  AIRouter -->|aiService| AIService[AI Dispatcher]
  AIService -->|API Key Checked| Gemini[Gemini SDK]
  AIService -->|Fallback| Template[Template Service]
  
  AuthRouter --> MongoDB[(MongoDB)]
  ProjectRouter --> MongoDB

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