Farmers Connect

A web app for Kenyan poultry farmers, the vets who look after their flocks and the suppliers who sell them feed, chicks and equipment. It is built mobile-first for mid-range and low-end Android phones on slow or unreliable mobile data.

Live at https://farmers-connect-azure.vercel.app

Who it is for

Role	What they can do
Farmer	Track batches and vaccinations, plan tasks, work out feed with the feed calculator, keep a farm photo gallery, find suppliers in the marketplace, book and message a vet (Ask Vet), join the community chat and ask Clucky, the AI farm assistant
Vet	Vet dashboard, appointments (accept or decline visits), the farmers they work with and their medical records, and a vet profile that an admin verifies
Supplier	Their own dashboard, product listings with photos, stock and prices, and a supplier profile that an admin verifies
Admin	Approve vets and suppliers, moderate the community (reports, paused members, blocked words), take down marketplace listings, answer reports and account requests, and see Clucky usage and platform stats

Features

• My Farm – batches, vaccination schedules and medical records, with reminders when something is due.
• Feed calculator – week-by-week feed amounts for broilers, layers and kienyeji birds, not a flat figure per phase.
• Tasks – a to-do list for the farm.
• Marketplace (contact-first) – farmers browse listings from suppliers and other farmers and contact the seller by phone or WhatsApp. In-app ordering exists in the code but is switched off (IN_APP_ORDERING in src/config/features.js).
• Ask Vet – find a vet, request a farm visit, filter by county, and see real suppliers and their listings.
• Community – one group chat for everyone, with replies, reactions, reporting and moderation. Blocked words are refused by the database.
• Clucky AI – a poultry assistant backed by a real AI model (Google Gemini) through a Supabase edge function. It asks for the farmer's agreement before the first question, sees only their county, batches and overdue vaccines – never their name, email or phone number – and is limited to 15 questions per account per day.
• Reporting and blocking – members can report a message, a listing, a member or an answer from Clucky, and block members they do not want to hear from.
• Notifications – an in-app bell for new events and for vaccinations, tasks and visits that are due. Each person chooses which ones they get. There is no push or SMS.
• Sign-in – email, phone number or Google, with password recovery by email.
• Your account, your data – anyone can delete their account and what it holds from their profile, or from /delete-account on the web.
• Light and dark themes – chosen in the app and remembered with the account.

No money moves through the app yet. Payments, in-app ordering and the revenue pages are planned for version 2.1.

This is not an offline app. It is built to stay usable on a bad connection (small pages, clear loading states, a retry button instead of lost input), not to work with no connection at all.

Tech stack

• Frontend: React 19, Vite, React Router 7, plain JavaScript
• Styling: plain CSS with a small design system in src/styles/tokens.css; icons from lucide-react; charts from recharts
• Backend: Supabase – Postgres with row-level security, auth, storage, realtime and edge functions
• AI: Google Gemini, called only from the clucky edge function
• Hosting: Vercel (merging to main deploys to production)

Getting started

You need Node.js 20 or newer and a Supabase project.

git clone https://github.com/ndereba2business-glitch/farmers_connect.git
cd farmers_connect
npm ci

Create a .env file in the project root:

VITE_SUPABASE_URL=https://<your-project>.supabase.co
VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=<your-anon-key>

These two values are public by design. Never put a secret in a VITE_ variable: everything with that prefix is shipped to every browser.

Then start the dev server:

npm run dev

Setting up the database

The whole schema history lives in supabase/migrations/. The Supabase CLI is installed with the project's dev dependencies; once it is linked to your project:

npx supabase db push

Setting up the edge functions

Three functions run on Supabase. Their secrets stay there and never reach the browser.

npx supabase functions deploy clucky --use-api
npx supabase functions deploy delete-account --use-api
npx supabase functions deploy account-request --use-api

npx supabase secrets set GEMINI_API_KEY=<your-key>
# optional
npx supabase secrets set GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-3.5-flash-lite
npx supabase secrets set CLUCKY_DAILY_LIMIT=15

Merging to main deploys the web app, not the functions: redeploy a function whenever its code changes.

Google sign-in

The Google button appears on its own once the Google provider is enabled in the Supabase dashboard (Authentication → Providers). Where people land after signing in is decided by Supabase's URL Configuration; npm run check:auth-urls reports whether it is right.

Scripts

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Start the dev server
npm run build	Production build
npm run lint	ESLint
npm test	Unit tests and end-to-end tests (no database needed)
npm run test:unit	Pure logic in src/lib and the Clucky prompt
npm run test:e2e	The real app in Chromium against an in-memory mock of Supabase, including 320, 360, 768 and 1280px layout checks and a contrast check of every page in both themes
npm run test:security	Access rules against the linked database (rolls back, leaves no data)
npm run test:live	Real sign-in journeys against the live project (needs test accounts in .env.test.local)
npm run test:clucky-live	Checks the deployed Clucky function
npm run test:account-live	Checks account deletion on the live project, on throwaway accounts it creates and removes
npm run check:secrets	Builds the app and checks the bundle for leaked secrets
npm run check:repo	Checks that no login, API key or key file is tracked in the repository
npm run check:auth-urls	Checks where sign-in returns people

Project structure

src/
  pages/            one file per route (routes are defined in src/App.jsx)
    legal/          privacy policy, terms, delete-account page
  components/       shared pieces: layout, route guard, notifications bell, dialogs, onboarding tour
    supplier/       supplier shell, hooks, form validation
    landing/        public landing page sections and photo credits
  context/          AuthContext (session, role, identity), ThemeContext and ToastContext
  lib/              Supabase client and feature logic (feed plan, community, Clucky, notifications, account, safety)
  config/           feature switches and the operator details the policy pages print
  styles/           design tokens, theme palette and responsive utilities
supabase/
  migrations/       schema history
  functions/        edge functions (clucky, delete-account, account-request)
  tests/            security checks
tests/
  unit/             pure logic tests
  e2e/              browser tests against a mock backend
  live/             checks against the deployed project
scripts/            icon and photo builders, security and secret checks
docs/play-store/    the Google Play release pack
android/            settings for the Android wrapper (no Android project or key is kept here)

CLAUDE.md holds the working rules for the codebase and the mistakes already made once.

Security

• Every table uses row-level security. Visitors who are not signed in have no database access, and anonymous sessions are refused everywhere.
• Admin rights come only from app_metadata, which users cannot edit. Vets and suppliers are trusted only after an admin verifies them.
• API keys for the AI service live only in Supabase function secrets.
• Uploaded photos can be opened by their address but not listed; lab results are private.
• Deleting an account removes its rows, its files and its login.

The full review, with what was fixed and what is still open, is docs/play-store/security-audit.md.

Google Play

The app is being prepared for Google Play as a Trusted Web Activity. No Android build exists yet and nothing has been submitted. docs/play-store/README.md says exactly what is done, what is not, and what only the owner can do.

Roadmap

• Version 2.1 – in-app payments, ordering and the revenue and vet earnings pages.

Screenshots

These screenshots are from an earlier version of the app and will be replaced with current ones.