Chat App

A production-oriented real-time chat monorepo built with Next.js 15, Socket.IO, MongoDB, and Turborepo.

Overview

This repository is structured to separate web UI, real-time transport, and shared domain code. It supports direct and group conversations, presence, delivery and seen tracking, and admin moderation flows.

Core capabilities

• Real-time direct and group messaging
• Typing indicators and online presence
• Message reactions, edits, and deletes
• Delivery and seen states
• NextAuth-based authentication (Google and credentials/OTP)
• Image upload signing through ImageKit
• Admin APIs for moderation and reporting
• Docker Compose setup for local or containerized development

Monorepo structure

.
├── apps/
│   ├── web/        # Next.js app (UI + API routes)
│   └── socket/     # Socket.IO transport server
├── packages/
│   ├── db/         # Mongo connection + models
│   ├── services/   # Shared business logic, validators, repositories
│   ├── redis/      # Redis and presence helpers
│   └── types/      # Shared types and socket event contracts
├── docker/
├── nginx/
├── docker-compose.yml
└── turbo.json

Architecture

1. The web app handles pages, authentication, and API endpoints.
2. API routes use shared packages for validation, persistence, and normalization.
3. The socket app handles real-time connections and room-based event broadcasting.
4. Shared contracts in packages/types keep client and server payloads aligned.
5. Redis is used for scalable socket coordination, with development-friendly behavior when not configured.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• npm 10+
• MongoDB
• Redis (recommended)

Environment configuration

Create a root .env file.

# Core
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/chat-app
NEXTAUTH_SECRET=replace_with_a_strong_secret
NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:3000

# Socket and internal bridge
INTERNAL_SECRET=replace_with_shared_internal_secret
ORIGIN=http://localhost:3000
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379
NEXT_PUBLIC_SOCKET_URL=http://localhost:3001

# OAuth (optional)
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=

# ImageKit (required if image upload is enabled)
NEXT_PUBLIC_PUBLIC_KEY=
IMAGEKIT_PUBLIC_KEY=
IMAGEKIT_PRIVATE_KEY=
NEXT_PUBLIC_URI_ENDPOINT=

# Email/OTP (optional)
SMTP_HOST=
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USER=
SMTP_PASS=
EMAIL_USER=
EMAIL_PASS=
EMAIL_FROM=

Local development

1. Install dependencies.

npm install

2. Start all workspaces in development mode.

npm run dev

3. Open the applications.

• Web: http://localhost:3000
• Socket server: http://localhost:3001

Scripts

From the repository root:

Script	Description
npm run dev	Runs development mode for all workspaces via Turborepo
npm run build	Builds all workspaces
npm run start	Starts production targets where defined
npm run lint	Runs lint tasks across workspaces
npm run clean	Runs clean tasks across workspaces

Docker

To run with containers:

docker compose up --build

The compose stack includes:

• nginx
• nextapp
• socket
• redis

Troubleshooting

• If ports 3000 or 3001 are busy, stop the existing processes and restart.
• If authentication fails, verify NEXTAUTH_SECRET and NEXTAUTH_URL.
• If realtime events do not connect, verify ORIGIN, INTERNAL_SECRET, and NEXT_PUBLIC_SOCKET_URL.