Mend >

Updated: December 01, 2024

Mend is a full-stack digital journaling application designed to provide a safe, private, and supportive space for users to explore their thoughts and emotions. By integrating an AI-powered analysis feature, Mend acts as a friendly mental wellness companion, offering empathetic insights and practical advice to help users on their mental health journey.

Demo

Watch the demo on YouTube>

Project Purpose

Mend was born from a desire to support individuals who face a stigma around mental health. It was created to bridge the gap for those in unsupportive environments, offering a first step into mental wellness in a private and non-judgmental way. The core idea is to provide friendly, AI-driven feedback that feels like talking to a compassionate friend, preparing users to seek professional therapy when they are ready.

How It Works: The Full-Stack Architecture

Mend is built on a modern, decoupled architecture that separates the user-facing application from the core backend logic to ensure a secure, scalable, and maintainable system.

1. React Frontend

A responsive Single-Page Application (SPA) built with React and TypeScript, using Vite for a fast development experience and styled with Tailwind CSS.

2. Node.js Backend:

A robust REST API built with Node.js and the Express.js framework, handling user authentication with Passport.js and secure communication with the OpenAI API.

3. MongoDB Database:

A NoSQL database hosted on Atlas, serving as the application's data store for user profiles and journal entries.

Technology Stack

• Frontend: React 18, TypeScript, Vite, React Router v7, Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Node.js, Express.js, Passport.js, express-session, bcrypt
• Database: MongoDB (hosted on Atlas)
• External APIs: OpenAI API (gpt-4o-mini)

Accomplishments & Learnings

• The team successfully designed and deployed a full-stack application using agile methodologies.
• A key accomplishment was achieving low latency between submitting a journal entry and receiving the AI analysis, creating a seamless user experience.
• The main challenge was managing application state across the frontend and ensuring it remained synchronized with the backend, which provided a deep dive into best practices for building secure and scalable APIs.

Future Work

• A key feature planned for a future release is an overall tone analysis, which will display a color-coded indicator on the user's dashboard to give them an at-a-glance impression of their emotional state over time.