PAU Network

PAU Network connects Pan-Atlantic University students with alumni from their own course. Students filter alumni by department, view LinkedIn-style profiles, book 30-minute mentorship sessions, send message requests, and join live Q&A spaces. Alumni publish availability, post to the timeline, host spaces, and earn badges, tiers and awards for helping.

Built in 6 hours for the Technology Innovation Club Mini Hackathon (Challenge 06: Alumni networking).

All people in the seed data are fictional. Employers are real Nigerian companies, used only for realism.

Architecture

PAU-Network/
├── backend/                 Express 5 + TypeScript REST API and Socket.IO server
│   ├── prisma/
│   │   ├── schema.prisma    Data model (single source of truth)
│   │   ├── migrations/      SQL migrations (includes partial unique index + check constraints)
│   │   ├── seed.ts          Demo users, work history, 20 months of activity, spaces, posts, messages
│   │   └── seed-awards.ts   Computes historical monthly/yearly awards from the points ledger
│   ├── prisma.config.ts     Prisma 7 config (CLI uses DIRECT_URL)
│   └── src/
│       ├── app.ts           Express app, routes mounted under /api/v1
│       ├── server.ts        HTTP + Socket.IO entry point
│       ├── config/env.ts    Validated environment variables
│       ├── lib/             prisma client (driver adapter), JWT, errors, validation, shared selects
│       ├── middleware/      authenticate, requireRole, error handler
│       ├── realtime/        Socket.IO rooms: user:<id>, space:<id>
│       └── modules/         One folder per feature: <feature>.routes.ts (+ .service.ts / .config.ts)
│           ├── auth  users  profile  departments
│           ├── availability  bookings
│           ├── conversations  posts  spaces
│           ├── gamification  awards  notifications
└── frontend/                Next.js 15 (App Router) + Tailwind CSS v4
    └── src/
        ├── theme.ts         ALL colours live here (see "Theming")
        ├── app/             Pages: feed, alumni, profile/[userId], settings, spaces, spaces/[spaceId],
        │                    messages, messages/[conversationId], bookings, availability, achievements, awards
        ├── components/      AppShell, ui kit, PostCard, BookingModal, EmojiPicker, Toast
        └── lib/             api client, session + socket context, types, formatters, image resizing

Request flow: browser → REST /api/v1/* (JWT bearer token) → Prisma 7 (@prisma/adapter-pg) → PostgreSQL (Neon). State changes emit Socket.IO events (resource:action-past-tense, e.g. space:hand-raised) so open tabs update live.

Audio/video in sessions and spaces uses Jitsi Meet rooms (no API key). Raised hands, speakers, questions, upvotes and emoji reactions run on our own Socket.IO server.

Naming conventions

Thing	Convention	Example
Prisma models	PascalCase, singular	SpaceQuestion
Database tables	snake_case, plural	space_questions
Fields / JSON keys	camelCase	graduationYear
Database columns	snake_case	graduation_year
Enums	PascalCase type, SCREAMING_SNAKE values	BookingStatus.PENDING
Primary / foreign keys	id (UUID) / <relation>Id	authorId
Booleans	is / has prefix	isVerified, hasOpenSlots
Timestamps	<event>At, UTC ISO 8601	createdAt, startsAt
Counters	<thing>Count	commentCount
REST paths	plural kebab-case nouns, actions as sub-resources	POST /bookings/:bookingId/accept
Socket events	resource:action-past-tense	space:question-created
Responses	{ data, meta? } / { error: { code, message, details? } }

Features

• Directory filtered by department, class year, industry and open slots. Students see their own course first.
• Profiles with a backdrop banner, profile photo, headline, about, experience (current and past roles), education, skills, badges and awards. Images are resized in the browser (avatar 320×320, banner 1500×375).
• Mentorship sessions: alumni publish slots (one-off or weekly pattern); students request with a topic and message; a request holds the slot; accepting creates a Jitsi link; students rate completed sessions.
• Message requests: students message alumni; nothing more can be sent until the alumnus accepts.
• Timeline: only alumni post; everyone comments (with one level of replies) and reacts 👍 ❤️ 🎉 💡 😂 🤝. Emoji picker in posts, comments and chat.
• Spaces: alumni schedule or go live; students RSVP, join, raise hands, get invited on stage, ask and upvote questions, and send floating emoji reactions.
• Gamification: an immutable points ledger with daily limits; tiers Bronze (0) → Silver (500) → Gold (2,000) → Platinum (5,000); 23 badges, each with a Bronze to Platinum level; monthly / yearly / all-time leaderboards.
• Awards: Alumni of the Month (3-month cooldown), Student of the Month, Department Champion, and yearly Alumni of the Year, Rising Star, Space of the Year and Students' Choice (community voting).
• Notifications stored and pushed live.

Theming

Every colour is defined once in frontend/src/theme.ts. The root layout turns it into CSS variables, and globals.css maps them to Tailwind classes (bg-primary, text-muted, border-line, bg-tier-gold, …). Change a hex value in theme.ts and the whole app updates. To add a new colour, add it to theme.ts and add one --color-<name>: var(--<name>); line to @theme inline in globals.css.

Running locally

Requirements: Node 20+.

# 1. Backend
cd backend
cp .env.example .env          # paste your Neon DATABASE_URL and DIRECT_URL
npm install
npx prisma migrate deploy
npm run db:seed               # demo data; every account's password is demo1234
npm run dev                   # http://localhost:4000/api/v1

# 2. Frontend (new terminal)
cd frontend
cp .env.example .env.local
npm install
npm run dev                   # http://localhost:3000

No Neon yet? npx prisma dev starts a local Postgres; put its URL in both DATABASE_URL and DIRECT_URL and set DATABASE_POOL_MAX=1.

Demo logins (password demo1234): [email protected] (CS student), [email protected] (alumni, Paystack), [email protected] (admin). The login page has one-click demo buttons.

LinkedIn sign-in

Create an app in the LinkedIn Developer Portal and enable Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect. Add this exact authorized redirect URL to the app:

http://localhost:4000/api/v1/auth/linkedin/callback

Set LINKEDIN_CLIENT_ID and LINKEDIN_CLIENT_SECRET in backend/.env. The default callback URL and frontend URL are for local development; set LINKEDIN_REDIRECT_URI, FRONTEND_URL, and CORS_ORIGINS for your deployment. The app requests only the openid, profile, and email scopes. Existing accounts are signed in by their verified LinkedIn email; new users confirm their PAU role, department, and study or employment details during registration.

Apply the new LinkedIn identity column before running the updated backend with cd backend && npm run db:deploy.

Space audio rooms

Spaces use LiveKit Cloud for real-time audio. Create a LiveKit Cloud project and set LIVEKIT_URL, LIVEKIT_API_KEY and LIVEKIT_API_SECRET in backend/.env (the URL starts with wss://). Restart the backend after configuration. The backend issues short-lived room tokens only to participants who have joined a live space; hosts and promoted speakers may publish microphone audio, while listeners may only subscribe. Tokens do not permit video or data publishing. No Jitsi account or moderator login is required.

Space reminder emails

Users who click Remind me are emailed once 1 hour before and again 15 minutes before a scheduled space starts. Configure RESEND_API_KEY and EMAIL_FROM in backend/.env; the sender address must be verified in Resend. Apply pending migrations with cd backend && npm run db:deploy and restart the backend. Reminder emails link to the space in the frontend. If the backend is unavailable during a reminder window, pending emails are sent when it resumes, while the space is still scheduled to start.

Deployment

• Database: Neon. Use the pooled URL for DATABASE_URL and the direct URL for DIRECT_URL.
• Backend: Render, using render.yaml. Set DATABASE_URL, DIRECT_URL and CORS_ORIGINS (your Vercel URL).
• Frontend: Vercel with root directory frontend and NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://<your-render-app>.onrender.com/api/v1.
• Awards: call POST /api/v1/awards/compute as an admin on the 1st of each month (and on 1 January for yearly awards), e.g. from a cron job.