Alcademy – Academic Platform for IGIT

A production-scale academic platform used daily by 2000+ students, built under real-world constraints.

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🧭 What This Project Actually Is

Alcademy is a client-orchestrated academic ecosystem designed for:

• Fragmented institutional systems
• Unreliable data sources
• Strict API rate limits

Instead of centralizing everything, responsibilities are distributed across systems, with the Flutter client acting as the orchestration layer.

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🧠 Why This Project Stands Out

Area	What Makes It Different
Architecture	Client-driven orchestration (non-traditional)
Reliability	Works even when some sources fail
Performance	Heavy use of caching + isolates
Scalability	No single system bottleneck
Real-world usage	2000+ active users

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🧱 Architecture Diagram

                         ┌──────────────────────────┐
                         │     External Systems     │
                         │──────────────────────────│
                         │  • Google Gemini API     │
                         │  • GitHub API (Notes)    │
                         │  • College Websites      │
                         │    (Scraped Data)        │
                         └──────────┬───────────────┘
                                    │
                                    ▼
                        ┌──────────────────────────┐
                        │     Flutter Client       │
                        │──────────────────────────│
                        │ • Feature Modules        │
                        │ • API Orchestration      │
                        │ • Caching Layer          │
                        │ • Rate Limiting          │
                        │ • Deep Linking           │
                        │ • Isolates (Parsing)     │
                        └───────┬────────┬─────────┘
                                │        │
               ┌────────────────┘        └────────────────┐
               ▼                                         ▼
   ┌──────────────────────┐               ┌────────────────────────┐
   │     Supabase         │               │       Firebase         │
   │──────────────────────│               │────────────────────────│
   │ • Users              │               │ • Push Notifications   │
   │ • Posts (Threads)    │               │   (FCM only)           │
   │ • Clubs Data         │               └────────────────────────┘
   │ • Storage (Buckets)  │
   └──────────────────────┘

               ▼
   ┌──────────────────────────────┐
   │   Local Device Layer 🔐      │
   │──────────────────────────────│
   │ • Secure Vault (Biometric)   │
   │ • Cached API Responses       │
   │ • Offline Utilities          │
   └──────────────────────────────┘

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⚙️ System Design Philosophy

Why this architecture works

• Decoupled systems → failure in one source doesn’t break the app
• Client-side intelligence → reduces backend complexity
• GitHub as CDN → predictable scaling
• Local-first design → fast UX + offline support

🧠 “Move complexity to where it scales best — in this case, the client.”

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🔄 Data Flow Pipeline

Google Drive → Python Script → GitHub → Flutter App

Pipeline Breakdown

Step	Purpose
Google Drive	Easy content management
Python Script	Structured transformation
GitHub	CDN layer
Flutter	Smart consumption

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🧩 Core Systems

📚 Academic Resource Engine

• GitHub-backed structured content
• Locally cached
• High-read optimized

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🧵 IGIT Threads

• Supabase-powered discussions
• Deep linking enabled
• Club-managed communities

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🔔 Notification System

• Firebase FCM (delivery only)
• Event-triggered

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🧠 AI Assistant

• Gemini API integration
• Stateless architecture
• Low latency

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📰 Notices Engine

• Web scraping pipeline
• Parsed via isolates
• Fault-tolerant

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🛡 Secure Vault

• Biometric-protected
• Local-only storage
• No backend dependency

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⚡ Performance Engineering

Key Optimizations

• Smart API caching
• Rate limiting (60/hr + controlled refresh)
• Background parsing (isolates)
• Lazy loading

Result

• 41 min avg engagement
• Smooth UI under heavy load
• Reduced API failures

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🌐 Scalability Strategy

Layer	Strategy
🌐 GitHub	Static scaling
🧩 Supabase	Relational scaling
🧠 Client	Orchestration

No single system becomes a bottleneck.

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💠 Key Engineering Wins

• Resilient multi-source system
• Reduced backend dependency
• Designed for unreliable environments
• High engagement via performance tuning

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🔰 What You Can Learn

• Client-side system design
• API orchestration
• Flutter performance patterns
• Caching + rate limiting
• Building under constraints

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🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Tech
Mobile	Flutter (Dart)
Backend	Supabase
Notifications	Firebase FCM
Content	GitHub API
AI	Google Gemini API
Local	SharedPreferences + Biometrics

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☢️ Trade-offs

Decision	Reason
Client-heavy logic	Reduced backend complexity
GitHub as CDN	Free + scalable
Stateless AI	Faster responses
Scraping notices	No official APIs

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🌀 Highlights

• Fast (offline-first + caching)
• Smart (AI + orchestration)
• Secure (biometric vault)
• Resilient (multi-source fallback)

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🛠 Run Locally

git clone https://github.com/your-repo
cd your-repo
flutter pub get
flutter run

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🤝 Contributing

Currently not open for external contributions.

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📌 Closing

Alcademy is a system design project disguised as a mobile app.

Built with one goal:

🪐 Deliver fast, reliable academic access even in imperfect environments.