Topic Tangle

Topic Tangle is an application for easily organizing and inspiring group discussions. Organizers create a room of topics where users choose which ones they're interested in. Afterwards, the app will create breakout groups based on users' overlapping topics and provide LLM-generated icebreaker questions.

Project Layout

The project is organized into the following major components:

• Frontend: Built with SvelteKit, located in the app/ directory.
• Backend: Includes a mock backend for local development and a Google Cloud Function backend for production, located in the backend/ directory.

Environment Configuration

Ensure the relevant .env files are populated with the necessary environment variables before running the application. Refer to the .env.example files for guidance on required variables.

Frontend

The frontend is built with SvelteKit and uses Vite for development and builds.

Development

1. Navigate to the app/ directory:

   cd app
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm i -D
   

3. Start the development server:

   npm run dev
   

Build

To create a production build:

npm run build

Backend

The backend provides APIs for managing rooms, user selections, and breakout groups. It supports two implementations:

1. Mock Backend: For rapid local development and testing. Uses an in-memory datastore.
2. Google Cloud Function Backend: Wraps the mock backend in a serverless google cloud function for production. Uses a gcloud datastore.

For development, you can run either the mock backend or the cloud function backend locally. Running the cloud function backend locally requires the gcloud CLI tool and a datastore instance (which can be emulated with gcloud).

Mock Backend

1. Navigate to the backend/mock/ directory:

   cd backend/mock
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm i -D
   

3. Build:

   npm run build
   

4. Run locally, rebuild and restart on code changes:

   npm run dev
   

Google Cloud Function Backend

1. Navigate to the backend/gcloud/function/ directory:

   cd backend/gcloud/function
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm i -D
   

3. Build (requires mock be built beforehand):

   npm run build
   

4. Run locally, rebuild and restart on code changes (will also watch and rebuild changes in mock):

   npm run dev
   

5. Deploy the function:

   ./deploy.sh