AskQlive

Live Q&A for multi-speaker events — one join code, real-time moderation, AI answers, and a presenter teleprompter.

Product: askqlive.com

Host control room: live question feed, stage controls, and run-of-show in one surface.

Why this exists

Live events still run Q&A on a fragile stack: Slack threads, sticky notes, random Mic-drop chaos, or tools that force every attendee to create an account before they can ask a question. Organizers lose the signal. Speakers lose confidence. Moderators drown in duplicates.

AskQlive collapses that stack into one purpose-built flow:

Pain today	What AskQlive does
Audience friction (sign-up walls)	Zero-auth join with a short code / QR
Questions scatter across chat apps	One live feed with upvote ranking
Multi-speaker events have no “room”	Series + segments with speaker invites
Hosts can’t see what to say next	Stage queue + teleprompter for presenters
No post-event learning	Analytics and AI-assisted summaries
Ops glue across Zoom / Slido / docs	One product for join → moderate → present → measure

Who it is for

• Conference and meetup organizers
• Enterprise town-hall / all-hands hosts
• Workshop facilitators and keynote teams
• Multi-speaker panels that need a clear run of show

What problem it solves (in detail)

1. Access friction kills participation. Most tools optimize for accounts, not moments. AskQlive optimizes for seconds to first question — enter a join code and ask.
2. Signal vs noise. Without ranking and moderation, the loudest chat wins. Upvotes, host approve/reject, and a curated stage queue keep the room focused.
3. Multi-speaker reality. Real events are not one perpetual session. AskQlive models series → segments, with per-speaker invites, socials, and session descriptions.
4. Presenter confidence. Knowing the next question under lights matters. The teleprompter surface is built for the person on stage, not the person in the ops channel.
5. AI where it helps, not where it distracts. Gemini powers OCR/context, suggested answers, and post-session reports — under host control, not as a replacement for moderation.
6. Operability. Docker → Artifact Registry → Cloud Run, with Secret Manager for keys and a GitHub → Cloud Build trigger so main deploys itself.

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Product at a glance

Join landing — code or QR, no account required for attendees.

Teleprompter — large, stage-readable next question for speakers.

Core capabilities

• Join & ask — short codes, share links, QR
• Live feed — upvote, pin, approve, ban as needed
• Host studio / control room — moderation + stage
• Manage Series — multi-segment run of show
• Speaker invites & profiles — socials, bios, segment topics
• Teleprompter — presenter-facing view
• Analytics — engagement during and after the session
• AI assists — document grounding, suggested answers, reports (Gemini)

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Architecture

System context

flowchart LR
  subgraph Clients
    A[Audience browser]
    H[Host / organizer]
    S[Speaker teleprompter]
  end

  subgraph Edge
    CF[askqlive.com<br/>Cloudflare DNS]
    CR[Cloud Run<br/>ask-q-live]
  end

  subgraph Data_and_AI
    FB[Firebase Auth<br/>Firestore]
    GM[Gemini API]
    SM[Secret Manager]
  end

  A --> CF --> CR
  H --> CF
  S --> CF
  CR --> FB
  CR --> GM
  SM -.->|FIREBASE_API_KEY<br/>GEMINI_API_KEY| CR

Request path (runtime)

flowchart TB
  Browser[Angular SPA + SSR]
  Express[Express on Cloud Run]
  Store[QaStore / QaRepository]
  FS[(Firestore)]
  Mem[(In-memory session cache)]
  Gemini[Gemini AI gateway]

  Browser -->|HTTP / SSR| Express
  Express --> Store
  Store --> FS
  Store --> Mem
  Express --> Gemini

Deploy pipeline

flowchart LR
  GH[GitHub<br/>Yash-Kavaiya/ask-q-live] -->|push main| CB[Cloud Build]
  CB -->|docker build + push| AR[Artifact Registry<br/>ask-q-live-repo]
  CB -->|gcloud run deploy| CR[Cloud Run<br/>us-central1]
  CR --> Dom[Custom domain<br/>askqlive.com / www]

Why this shape is useful

• Cloud Run — scale to zero between events; burst when a keynote starts
• SSR Angular — fast first paint and shareable links that resolve on the server
• Firebase — auth for organizers + durable series/session data
• Secrets outside the image — keys rotate without rebuilding
• One domain mapping — revisions change; askqlive.com does not

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Tech stack

Layer	Choice
UI	Angular 21, Angular Material, Tailwind-style utility classes
Server	Express + Angular SSR
Auth / DB	Firebase Auth, Cloud Firestore
AI	Google Gemini (@google/genai)
Runtime	Docker on Google Cloud Run (us-central1)
CI/CD	Cloud Build (cloudbuild.yaml) on push to main
DNS	Cloudflare → Cloud Run domain mapping
Analytics	Google Analytics (G-V2Q44SS4M9), Microsoft Clarity

GCP + Firebase project (single): gen-ai-guru-gdg-pune
Service: ask-q-live · Firestore: (default) · Auth: Firebase Auth in the same project

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Quick start (local)

npm install
cp .env.example .env   # set GEMINI_API_KEY and FIREBASE_API_KEY
npm run dev            # http://localhost:3000

Useful scripts:

Command	Purpose
npm run dev	Local UI + API with HMR
npm run build	Production client + SSR bundle
npm test	Vitest unit tests
npm run test:e2e	Playwright suite

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Deployment model

1. Push to main on GitHub.
2. Trigger ask-q-live-main-deploy runs cloudbuild.yaml.
3. Image lands in Artifact Registry; Cloud Run rolls a new revision.
4. Service URL and custom domain stay stable — no DNS change per release.

Secrets on Cloud Run:

• GEMINI_API_KEY ← Secret Manager gemini-api-key
• FIREBASE_API_KEY ← Secret Manager firebase-api-key

One-time GCP bootstrap (reference): setup-gcp.sh.

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Repository map

src/app/           Angular UI (host studio, join, series, teleprompter, …)
src/server/        Express API, QaStore, Gemini gateway, auth helpers
src/server.ts      SSR composition root + allowedHosts
cloudbuild.yaml    Build → Artifact Registry → Cloud Run
Dockerfile         Production image
assets/readme/     README screenshots
docs/              Specs / plans (large pitch & video trees are gitignored)

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Justification summary

AskQlive is useful because it treats live Q&A as an event operations problem, not a chat widget:

1. Lower the cost of asking → more real questions.
2. Raise the cost of noise → moderation + ranking.
3. Respect the stage → teleprompter and run-of-show.
4. Respect the calendar → multi-speaker series, not a single endless room.
5. Ship like a product → Cloud Run + CI/CD + custom domain, not a demo that dies after the meetup.

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License / status

Private application repository. Product surface: askqlive.com.