🎅 Secret Santa Generator

A simple, local, and private tool to organize Secret Santa gift exchanges for family and friends. No more drawing names from a hat! 🎩✨

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🎄 Features

• Smart Algorithm:
  • No one can draw themselves.
  • Exclusion Management: Prevents couples from picking each other (or any other custom rule).
  • Automatic deadlock detection (infinite loops).
• Festive Interface: A simple Christmas-themed UI with snow animation.
• Total Privacy: Data stays with you (local JSON file), nothing is stored in the Cloud.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

This project is a "Micro-App" designed to be lightweight:

• Backend: Node.js with Express.
• Frontend: HTML5, CSS3 (No heavy framework), Vanilla JS.
• Data: Local JSON file.

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📂 Project Structure

secret-santa-app/
└──src
    ├── .gitignore             # Security: prevents uploading private data
    ├── server.js              # API Server & Draw Algorithm
    ├── package.json           # Dependencies
    │
    ├── data/
    │   └── participants.json  # ⚠️ Contains your family list (ignored by Git)
    │
    └── public/                # The Frontend
        ├── index.html         # Homepage
        ├── style.css          # Styles & Animations
        └── script.js          # API Call Logic

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🚀 Installation & Usage

1. Clone the project

git clone [https://github.com/killianmathias/Secret-Santa.git](https://github.com/killianmathias/Secret-Santa.git)
cd Secret-Santa

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Configure participants

Create a data folder at the root, then a participants.json file inside it. Use the following format to define members and exclusions (who cannot pick whom):

[
  {
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Alice",
    "exclusions": ["2"]
  },
  {
    "id": "2",
    "name": "Bob",
    "exclusions": ["1"]
  },
  {
    "id": "3",
    "name": "Charlie",
    "exclusions": []
  }
]

In this example, Alice (ID 1) will never be able to pick Bob (ID 2).

4. Launch the application

node server.js
# Or if you have nodemon
nodemon server.js

Go to http://localhost:3000 to start the draw! 🎁

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🔒 Security and Data

This project is designed to never expose your loved ones' names on the Internet. The .gitignore file is configured to ignore the /data folder.

⚠️ Warning: Never force add the participants.json file to Git if your repository is public.

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📝 Author

Developed for Christmas🎅 by Killian MATHIAS