TinAMU

TinAMU is a university social platform prototype for computer-science students. The project combines a Flask API and a React frontend to explore peer discovery, messaging, quizzes, and resource sharing inside a single campus-oriented product.

Current scope

• Student authentication and profile flows
• Matching / social feed concepts
• Real-time messaging foundations with Socket.IO
• Quiz and learning-oriented interactions
• Shared resources for the university community

Configuration

Runtime secrets are expected to come from environment variables. For local development, copy backend/.env.example to backend/.env, set your values, and start the backend with explicit credentials rather than relying on static secrets committed in code.

Tech stack

Layer	Technologies
Frontend	React, Vite, Redux Toolkit, React Router, Axios
Backend	Flask, Flask-JWT-Extended, Flask-SQLAlchemy, Flask-Migrate, Flask-SocketIO
Database	SQLite by default, PostgreSQL optional
Realtime	Socket.IO

Repository layout

tinamu/
├── backend/
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── models/
│   │   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── services/
│   │   ├── sockets/
│   │   └── utils/
│   ├── config.py
│   ├── run.py
│   └── seed.py
└── frontend/
    ├── src/
    │   ├── components/
    │   ├── services/
    │   ├── socket/
    │   └── store/
    └── public/

Getting started

Backend

cd backend
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
python seed.py
python run.py

The local demo now boots on SQLite without provisioning PostgreSQL.

If you explicitly want PostgreSQL, install the optional adapter too:

pip install -r requirements-postgres.txt

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Verification

Backend sanity check:

python3 -m compileall backend/app backend/run.py backend/config.py backend/seed.py

Frontend production build:

cd frontend
npm run build

Configuration

The repository ships only with backend/.env.example.

Create your local file with:

cp backend/.env.example backend/.env

Then set values appropriate for your machine:

• SECRET_KEY
• JWT_SECRET_KEY
• DATABASE_URL
• CORS_ORIGINS

Do not commit local environment files.

Notes

• This repository is a functional student product demo, not a production deployment.
• Sensitive configuration has been moved out of tracked files.
• backend/API.md documents the API surface in more detail.