Unify

A mobile app helping newcomers settle in Canada — built by Unify.

Unify provides community, personalized checklists, AI-powered guidance, and educational content to support immigrants, refugees, international students, and skilled workers through their settlement journey.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	React Native 0.79 / Expo SDK 53
Routing	Expo Router (file-based)
Backend	Supabase (Auth, PostgreSQL, Edge Functions)
CMS	Sanity (Learn content, checklist templates)
State	React Query v5 (server), Context API (local)
Analytics	PostHog
Images	AWS S3 (signed URLs)
Email	Resend API
AI	Google Gemini (via edge function proxy)
UI	React Native Paper, lucide-react-native

Features

The app is organized around 5 main tabs:

Home Feed

Three sub-feeds — For You, Following, and Groups — with infinite scroll, post creation, likes, comments, saves, and sharing. A horizontal carousel shows joined groups and community news. Feeds automatically filter blocked users (30s cached blocklist).

Community (Gather)

Browse and join groups, discover community events, read news, and access Community Matching — an algorithm that connects users with similar backgrounds (persona + time in Canada) into small circles for peer support.

Companion

An AI chatbot powered by RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) over Sanity CMS content. Supports conversation history, starter prompts, and source citations. Free tier: 3 messages; unlimited with premium.

Checklist

Personalized onboarding tasks based on the user's persona (international student, refugee, protected person, skilled worker, immigrant, PR) and time in Canada (0–3 months through 3+ years). Tasks are defined in Sanity CMS. Users can also create custom tasks.

Learn

Structured educational modules (Sanity CMS) with lessons, quizzes, practice exercises, and progress tracking. A compact resume row opens the most recent unfinished lesson. Category and module lists show progress. The versioned lesson reader supports structured content sections. See the Learn content contract.

Additional Features

• Auth: Email + OTP, Google OAuth, Apple Sign-In (iOS)
• Moderation: Content keyword filter, post/user reporting (emails moderators via Resend), user blocking
• Push notifications: Expo Notifications with social (default), circles, and learn channels — published by send-social-push, matchmake-circles, and send-learn-reminders respectively
• Profile: Avatar uploads (S3), follow/unfollow, user profiles
• Haptics: Configurable haptic feedback on interactions
• Legal: Consent modal linking to Notion-hosted documents

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Expo / React Native             │
│                                                  │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  │
│  │  Screens │  │  Hooks   │  │  Components  │  │
│  │ (app/)   │  │          │  │              │  │
│  └────┬─────┘  └────┬─────┘  └──────────────┘  │
│       │              │                           │
│       └──────┬───────┘                           │
│              │                                   │
│       ┌──────▼──────┐                            │
│       │  Services   │                            │
│       └──────┬──────┘                            │
└──────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┼──────────────┐
    │          │              │
    ▼          ▼              ▼
┌────────┐ ┌────────┐  ┌──────────┐
│Supabase│ │Sanity  │  │  AWS S3  │
│  Auth  │ │  CMS   │  │ (images) │
│  DB    │ │        │  │          │
│  Edge  │ │        │  │          │
│  Funcs │ │        │  │          │
└────────┘ └────────┘  └──────────┘

Key Patterns

• Feed factory (hooks/feeds/useFeedFactory.ts) — shared pagination logic across all feed types
• Blocked user filtering — services/users/getBlockedUserIds.ts with 30s in-memory cache, applied to all feeds
• Edge function pattern — validate auth → perform action → send notification email (see report-post, block-user)
• Image handling — S3 upload with signed URL retrieval; in-memory URL caches (avatarUrlCache.ts, postImageUrlCache.ts)
• Content filter — client-side keyword filter in utils/contentFilter.ts, checked before post submission

Supabase Edge Functions

Function	Purpose
gemini-proxy	Proxies requests to Google Gemini API
rag-query	Retrieves Sanity content for RAG context
report-post	Handles post reports, emails moderators
report-user	Handles user reports, emails moderators
block-user	Blocks user, notifies moderators
request-group	Request to join private groups
matchmake-circles	Runs community matching algorithm
generate-title	Auto-generates post titles
profile-picture-*	Profile picture upload/retrieval

Project Structure

unify-front-end/
├── app/                        # Expo Router screens
│   ├── (tabs)/                 # Tab navigation
│   │   ├── index.tsx           # Home feed (For You / Following / Groups)
│   │   ├── Gather/            # Community tab
│   │   ├── companion/         # AI chatbot
│   │   ├── Checklist/         # Onboarding tasks
│   │   └── Learn/             # Educational modules
│   ├── create-post.tsx         # Post creation
│   ├── community-matching/     # Circle matching flow
│   ├── ReportScreen.tsx        # Report post/user
│   └── _layout.tsx             # Root layout
├── components/
│   ├── AuthComponents/         # SignIn, SignUp, OTP, Legal
│   ├── ChatBot/               # Companion UI
│   ├── home/                  # Feed, PostItem, Comments
│   ├── learn/                 # Module cards, lessons
│   └── matching/              # Circle UI
├── hooks/
│   ├── feeds/                 # useFeedFactory, useForYouFeed, etc.
│   ├── posts/                 # useLikePost, useCreatePost
│   ├── companion/             # useConversationMessages, useSendMessage
│   ├── progress/              # useProgressCache, useInProgressLessons
│   ├── sanity/                # useSanityModules, useSearchModules
│   └── users/                 # useFollowUser, useUserProfile
├── services/
│   ├── feeds/                 # Feed queries
│   ├── posts/                 # Post CRUD, likes, comments
│   ├── users/                 # Profiles, followers, blocking
│   ├── companion/             # Chatbot conversations
│   ├── checklist/             # Task management
│   ├── matching/              # Circles, matchmaking
│   ├── s3/                    # Image uploads
│   └── progress/              # Learn progress tracking
├── context/                    # UserContext, HapticsContext, ToastContext
├── types/                      # TypeScript definitions
├── utils/                      # contentFilter, analytics, legalUrls
├── lib/
│   └── supabase.ts            # Supabase client
└── supabase/
    └── functions/              # Edge functions (Deno)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18+
• npm
• Expo CLI (npm install -g @expo/cli)
• iOS Simulator (macOS) or Android Emulator

Installation

git clone <repository-url>
cd Unify/unify-front-end
npm install

Environment

The app requires a .env file in unify-front-end/ with:

• EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL — Supabase project URL
• EXPO_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY — Supabase anon key
• EXPO_PUBLIC_SANITY_PROJECT_ID — Sanity project ID
• EXPO_PUBLIC_SANITY_DATASET — Sanity dataset (defaults to production)
• EXPO_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_API_KEY — PostHog key
• EXPO_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST — PostHog host URL

Edge functions require their own secrets configured via supabase secrets set.

Running

npx expo start

• i — iOS Simulator
• a — Android Emulator
• w — Web browser
• Scan QR code with Expo Go on device

Scripts

Command	Description
npm start	Start Expo dev server
npm run ios	Run on iOS
npm run android	Run on Android
npm run web	Run on web
npm test	Run tests
npm run lint	Run ESLint
npm run format	Run Prettier

Security

• Supabase Row Level Security (RLS) on all tables
• Edge functions validate JWT auth before processing
• AI API keys stored server-side only (edge function secrets)
• Secure token storage via expo-secure-store
• Client-side content filtering before post submission
• HTML escaping in moderation emails to prevent injection
• Moderator notifications sent to [email protected]