YooChat is a modern, real-time chat web application built for language learners to connect, interact, and practice together.
It provides a clean UI, friend requests, onboarding, and more — all built with the MERN stack and deployed via Railway.

🌐 Live App: yoochat.up.railway.app
📚 Indexed on DeepWiki: deepwiki.com/AyoubHamou/YooChat
📦 GitHub Repo: github.com/AyoubHamou/YooChat
🔴 Youtube Preview Link: https://youtu.be/4F9rrb1utNo

• 🔐 Authentication – Sign up, log in, and secure sessions with JWT.
• 💬 Real-Time Messaging – Chat with friends in real-time.
• 👥 Friend Requests – Send, accept, or reject friend connections.
• 📋 User Onboarding – Personalized setup to get started quickly.
• 🌍 Geo-aware Experience – (Planned) Location-based language practice.
• 📱 Responsive Design – Works seamlessly on both desktop and mobile.

Other Tools:

• React Query for data fetching and caching
• Lucide Icons for UI
• Mongoose for MongoDB ORM
• DeepWiki for project indexing and documentation

Coming Soon — add screenshots or screen recordings of your app here!

YooChat/
├── client/          # React frontend
├── server/          # Express backend
├── .env             # Environment variables
├── package.json     # Project metadata and scripts

git clone https://github.com/AyoubHamou/YooChat
cd YooChat

Create a .env file in both /client and /server directories. Example for the server:

MONGO_URI=your_mongo_connection_string
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

# For client
cd client
npm install

# For server
cd ../server
npm install

# From root or use concurrently
npm run dev

YooChat was built as a side project to experiment with building a real-time chat app from scratch using MERN and explore modern UI practices and user experience flows. It's also indexed on DeepWiki for long-term documentation and discoverability.

Contributions are welcome!
Feel free to open an issue or pull request.

MIT License © Ayoub Hamou