📚 StudyMind v2 — AI Study Assistant

A production-ready full-stack study assistant with authentication, MongoDB persistence, AI-powered summaries, and a real-time Q&A chat interface.

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🗂 Folder Structure

studymind/
├── backend/
│   ├── middleware/
│   │   └── auth.js             # JWT verification middleware
│   ├── models/
│   │   ├── User.js             # User schema (bcrypt hashed passwords)
│   │   ├── Note.js             # Note schema (text, summary, metadata)
│   │   └── ChatSession.js      # Chat session + embedded messages
│   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── auth.js             # POST /register, POST /login, GET /me
│   │   ├── notes.js            # Upload, summarize, list, delete
│   │   └── chat.js             # Sessions, messages, history
│   ├── utils/
│   │   └── db.js               # MongoDB connection
│   ├── server.js               # Express entry point
│   ├── package.json
│   └── .env.example
│
├── frontend/
│   ├── public/index.html
│   └── src/
│       ├── components/
│       │   ├── chat/
│       │   │   └── ChatPanel.jsx      # Q&A chat UI with suggestions
│       │   ├── layout/
│       │   │   ├── Sidebar.jsx        # Notes list, upload, search
│       │   │   └── TopBar.jsx         # Breadcrumb, dark mode, user menu
│       │   ├── notes/
│       │   │   └── SummaryPanel.jsx   # AI summary with skeleton loader
│       │   └── ui/
│       │       └── index.jsx          # Spinner, Alert, EmptyState, Skeletons
│       ├── context/
│       │   ├── AuthContext.jsx        # Global auth state + JWT storage
│       │   └── ThemeContext.jsx       # Dark/light mode with persistence
│       ├── hooks/
│       │   ├── useNotes.js            # Notes CRUD state management
│       │   └── useChat.js             # Chat session + message state
│       ├── pages/
│       │   ├── AuthPages.jsx          # Login + Signup forms
│       │   └── DashboardPage.jsx      # Main app layout
│       ├── utils/
│       │   └── api.js                 # Axios client with JWT interceptors
│       ├── App.jsx                    # Router + protected routes
│       ├── index.js
│       └── index.css                  # Tailwind + design system tokens
│
└── README.md

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⚡ Setup (3 terminals)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• MongoDB (local or Atlas)
• Anthropic API key → https://console.anthropic.com

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Step 1 — MongoDB

Option A: Local MongoDB

# macOS
brew tap mongodb/brew && brew install mongodb-community
brew services start mongodb-community

# Ubuntu
sudo apt install mongodb
sudo systemctl start mongodb

# Windows — download from https://www.mongodb.com/try/download/community

Option B: MongoDB Atlas (free cloud)

1. Create account at https://www.mongodb.com/atlas
2. Create a free cluster
3. Click "Connect" → "Drivers" → copy the connection string
4. Replace <password> with your DB user password

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Step 2 — Backend

cd studymind/backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env

Edit .env:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/studymind
JWT_SECRET=supersecretlongstringchangeme123456
JWT_EXPIRES_IN=7d
PORT=5000
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:3000

npm run dev        # → http://localhost:5000

You should see:

🚀 StudyMind backend → http://localhost:5000
✅ MongoDB connected: localhost

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Step 3 — Frontend

Open a new terminal:

cd studymind/frontend
npm install
npm start          # → http://localhost:3000

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Important: Always use npm start in the frontend/ folder.
Do NOT open index.html directly — the proxy to the backend won't work.

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🔧 Fixing Upload Issues

If files won't upload, check these in order:

1. Backend running? Open http://localhost:5000/api/health — should return {"status":"OK"}
2. Using npm start? The /api proxy only works via CRA dev server, not VS Code Live Server
3. CORS error? Make sure FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:3000 in your .env
4. PDF parse error? Password-protected PDFs can't be parsed — try a plain PDF
5. Network tab in browser DevTools → check the actual error message from the API

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🚀 Features

Feature	Details
🔐 Auth	Register/login with JWT, bcrypt password hashing
📎 Upload	Drag-and-drop PDF or .txt, up to 10 MB
✨ Summary	AI-powered structured summary (cached in MongoDB)
💬 Chat	Multi-turn Q&A with full history saved to DB
🌙 Dark mode	System-aware, persisted to localStorage
🔍 Search	Filter notes by name in sidebar
🗑 Delete	Removes note and all linked chat sessions

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🌐 API Reference

All routes (except auth) require Authorization: Bearer <token> header.

Auth

Method	Endpoint	Body	Description
POST	/api/auth/register	{name, email, password}	Create account
POST	/api/auth/login	{email, password}	Get JWT token
GET	/api/auth/me	—	Get current user

Notes

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/notes/upload	Upload file (multipart, field: file)
GET	/api/notes	List your notes
POST	/api/notes/:id/summarize	Generate/return AI summary
DELETE	/api/notes/:id	Delete note + sessions

Chat

Method	Endpoint	Body	Description
POST	/api/chat/session	{noteId}	Create session
POST	/api/chat/:id/message	{message}	Send message
GET	/api/chat/:id/history	—	Get messages
GET	/api/chat/sessions/:noteId	—	All sessions for note
DELETE	/api/chat/:id	—	Delete session

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🏗 Production Deployment

Build frontend

cd frontend && npm run build

Serve with Express

Add to backend/server.js:

const path = require("path");
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, "../frontend/build")));
app.get("*", (req, res) =>
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, "../frontend/build/index.html"))
);

Environment for production

NODE_ENV=production
MONGODB_URI=your-mongodb-uri-goes-here
JWT_SECRET=<long-random-string-from-openssl-rand>
FRONTEND_URL=https://yourdomain.com

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🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18, React Router v6, Tailwind CSS
Backend	Node.js, Express 4
Database	MongoDB + Mongoose
Auth	JWT + bcryptjs
AI	Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4
File parsing	multer + pdf-parse