CrewThread

A hybrid social platform that combines a Twitter-style feed, LinkedIn-style profiles, and an Upwork-style freelance marketplace — built for job seekers and companies.

CrewThread lets people share posts, build a professional profile, discover and apply to jobs, post and pitch freelance projects, and chat with an AI assistant ("Grok"), all wrapped in a fast, dark, X-inspired UI.

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✨ Features

• 🐦 Social feed — post, browse, and engage with a Twitter-style timeline (For you / Following).
• 👤 Rich profiles — headline, bio, skills, experience, education, portfolio links, and availability status.
• 💼 Jobs board — companies post jobs; job seekers browse and apply.
• 🧑‍💻 Freelance projects — post projects and submit proposals, Upwork-style.
• 🔐 Auth portal — email/username + password login & signup with secure, session-cookie auth and a job-seeker / company role picker.
• 🤖 AI assistant ("Grok") — chat powered by Google Gemini.
• 🖼️ Media uploads — image upload & cropping via Cloudinary.
• 🌱 Demo data seeding — one click to populate the app with realistic sample content.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Next.js 14 (App Router)
Language	TypeScript, React 18
Styling	Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion, lucide-react icons
Database	MongoDB via Mongoose
Auth	Stateless HMAC-signed session cookies + scrypt hashing (Node crypto, no extra deps)
AI	Google Generative AI (Gemini)
Media	Cloudinary

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18.17+ (or 20+)
• A MongoDB database (local or MongoDB Atlas)
• (Optional) Cloudinary and Google Gemini accounts for uploads & AI chat

1. Clone & install

git clone https://github.com/sujalsharma02/CrewThread.git
cd CrewThread
npm install

2. Configure environment variables

Create a .env.local file in the project root:

# Required
MONGODB_URI=mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@<cluster>/crewthread

# Recommended — secret used to sign auth session cookies.
# Generate one with: node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"
AUTH_SECRET=your-long-random-secret

# Optional — image uploads (Cloudinary)
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=your-cloud-name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=your-api-key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=your-api-secret

# Optional — AI assistant (Google Gemini)
GEMINI_API_KEY=your-gemini-api-key

.env.local is git-ignored. Never commit real secrets.

3. Run the dev server

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. Use the "Demo Data" button on the home page to seed sample users, posts, jobs, and projects, then head to /signup to create an account.

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📜 Available Scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start the development server
npm run build	Create a production build
npm run start	Run the production build
npm run lint	Run ESLint (Next.js lint)

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📁 Project Structure

src/
├── app/                  # Next.js App Router (pages + API routes)
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── auth/         # signup, login, logout, me
│   │   ├── posts/  jobs/  projects/  users/  chat/  upload/  seed/
│   ├── login/  signup/   # Auth portal pages
│   ├── explore/  jobs/  projects/  messages/  notifications/  grok/  settings/
│   ├── profile/[username]/
│   ├── layout.tsx        # Root layout (wraps app in AuthProvider)
│   └── page.tsx          # Home feed
├── components/
│   ├── auth/             # AuthProvider (context) + AuthForm
│   ├── feed/             # PostCard, CreatePostModal, ImageCropperModal
│   └── layout/           # MainLayout (sidebars, nav)
├── lib/                  # db (mongoose), auth (crypto helpers), utils
└── models/               # Mongoose schemas: User, Post, Job, Project, Proposal

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are very welcome — whether it's a bug fix, a new feature, docs, or design polish. Thank you for helping make CrewThread better!

Ground rules

• Be respectful and constructive. We follow a "be kind" code of conduct.
• Keep changes focused — one logical change per pull request.
• Match the existing code style (TypeScript, functional React components, Tailwind, the dark/indigo theme tokens already used across the app).

Workflow

1. Fork the repository and clone your fork.
2. Create a branch off main with a descriptive name:

   git checkout -b feat/job-filters       # or fix/..., docs/..., chore/...

3. Make your changes. Keep commits small and meaningful.
4. Verify it builds and type-checks before pushing:

   npx tsc --noEmit
   npm run build

5. Commit using Conventional Commits:

   feat: add salary range filter to jobs board
   fix: prevent duplicate username on signup
   docs: clarify env setup
   

6. Push to your fork and open a Pull Request against main.
   • Describe what changed and why.
   • Link any related issues (e.g. Closes #12).
   • Add screenshots / clips for UI changes.

Reporting bugs & requesting features

Open an issue and include:

• Bugs: steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual behavior, screenshots, and environment (OS, browser, Node version).
• Features: the problem you're solving and your proposed approach.

Coding conventions

• Components: client components are marked with "use client"; keep server-only logic in route handlers / lib.
• Styling: prefer Tailwind utilities and the existing inline color tokens (#000, #16181c, #2f3336, indigo #6366f1 → purple #a855f7 gradient).
• Data: all DB access goes through connectDB() in src/lib/db.ts; never return password fields (the User schema keeps password as select: false).
• Auth: use the helpers in src/lib/auth.ts rather than rolling new crypto.

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📄 License

CrewThread is open source under the MIT License. © 2026 Sujal Sharma.