StudentLink AI

About StudentLink AI

StudentLink AI was inspired by a simple problem I noticed while working with student and alumni communities: valuable people are often in the same network, but they are hard to discover, contact, or learn from. Students want referrals, event updates, interview advice, and community support. Alumni want to stay connected and give back, but there is rarely one clean place where all of that happens.

I built StudentLink AI as a student and alumni networking platform that brings profiles, events, referrals, groups, interview experiences, and community posts into one shared hub. The goal is to make a school or program network feel easier to navigate, more useful, and more alive. How I Built It

The project started in Lovable and was transferred into Codex for development, cleanup, deployment, and renaming. The frontend is built with React, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn/ui components. The backend uses Supabase for authentication, database tables, profiles, submissions, events, groups, posts, and admin workflows.

I used Codex to:

• Import the project from GitHub
• Install and verify the app locally
• Fix deployment issues from the Lovable export
• Rename the product from an alumni-specific brand to StudentLink AI
• Deploy the project publicly
• Create a new built-in Codex URL for the updated brand
• Push the final version back to GitHub for collaboration

What I Learned

I learned a lot about moving a project between AI development platforms. The biggest lesson was that a project can work perfectly in one environment but still need cleanup before it can deploy somewhere else. Some Lovable-specific dependencies and lockfiles pointed to private package sources, so I had to remove or adjust them before the app could build publicly.

I also learned how important naming is. The original project was focused on alumni, but the idea became broader: a network for students, alumni, and early-career professionals. That led to the new name StudentLink AI, which better captures the product’s purpose.

Challenges

The biggest challenge was deployment. The app was originally a static Vite project, but Codex hosting expected a server-compatible output structure. I had to add a small server wrapper and adjust the build output so the hosted version could serve the React app correctly.

Another challenge was preserving the working app while changing the brand and URL. I had to create a second hosted version with a new built-in URL, then make sure GitHub, the deployment configuration, and the live site all pointed to the right place.

Final Result

The final project is a public web app called StudentLink AI:

https://studentlink-ai.jainraghav-rj.chatgpt.site

StudentLink AI helps students and alumni connect through profiles, events, referrals, groups, and community updates. My goal is for it to become a smarter, more accessible network layer for academic communities.

Built With

• codex
• gpt-5.6
• openai
• react