Journal Companion

Landing Page
Statistic Section
Authentication Page
Projects Page
Project Detail Page
Share Modal

Inspiration

During many solo and team-based projects, I noticed how easily valuable context gets lost — from scattered notes to forgotten lessons learned. I wanted to build a tool that not only lets you track your project journey but also helps you reflect, improve, and share that process in one place.

What it does

Journal Companion is a collaborative journaling tool designed for builders. It allows individuals or teams to:

Create a project workspace
Set and track milestones
Add structured journal entries with Markdown support
Tag entries and filter them easily
Collaborate with others in real time
Share their project journals publicly
Chat with an integrated AI assistant trained to support reflection, planning, and documentation

It’s like a digital lab notebook meets a public devlog — powered by AI and built for iteration.

How I built it

Built with the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node), and Firebase for authentication, the platform supports both solo and multi-user workflows. The front end was crafted with an emphasis on smooth UX using Framer Motion.

The AI assistant was designed using prompt engineering and dynamic context awareness to guide journaling, spark insights, and keep progress moving.

Challenges I ran into

Frontend:

Structuring nested routes and views for Projects → Milestones → Entries
State management across collaborative sessions
Building a UI that feels both welcoming and minimal
Creating and training context-aware content for the AI assistant

Backend:

Resolving Firebase restrictions and Google sign-in edge cases
Handling backend compatibility across different environments
Ensuring seamless communication between the frontend and backend, especially with real-time updates and dynamic data