Chipper Together

Chipper Together is a collaborative team forum designed to help members of a company or organization communicate, share ideas, and stay connected. The platform allows team members to post short messages called Chips, respond to colleagues’ posts, and engage in threaded discussions — fostering transparency, collaboration, and quick knowledge sharing.

Repository: fortune-c/chipper

About the Project

Chipper Together aims to bridge the gap between formal communication tools and casual team interaction. By providing a secure, company-focused social platform, teams can maintain transparency while fostering innovation through quick idea sharing and collaborative discussions.

Vision

To create the ultimate internal communication platform that combines the best aspects of social media engagement with enterprise-grade security and productivity features.

Key Features

Collaborative Communication

• Rich Chips (Posts): Share messages with multimedia attachments (images, videos, docs).
• Threaded Discussions: Nested replies to keep conversations organized.
• Live Reactions: Express feedback instantly with emoji reactions on posts and messages.
• Mentions & Notifications: Tag team members (@username) to loop them in, with real-time alerts.
• Polls: Gather team sentiment quickly with integrated voting.

Real-time Messaging

• Direct & Group Chats: Private or team-based conversations.
• Media Sharing: Drag-and-drop file sharing in chat.
• Video/Audio Calls: Integrated calling interface for quick syncs.
• Read Status: Know when your messages have been seen.

Productivity Tools

• Task Management: Personal to-do lists integrated directly into the dashboard.
• Meeting Scheduler: Coordinate and view upcoming team meetings.
• Status Updates: Let your team know your availability with custom status messages and emojis.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Laravel 12 (PHP 8.2+)
• Database: PostgreSQL (Production on Render) / SQLite (Local/Dev)
• Frontend: Blade Templates + Tailwind CSS + Alpine.js
• Build Tooling: Vite (Node.js/npm)
• Containerization: Docker (optimized for Render deployment)

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.2+
• Composer
• Node.js & npm (for compiling assets)
• PostgreSQL or SQLite
• Git

Deployment & Setup

Docker Deployment (Render)

This project is configured for deployment on Render using Docker.

1. The Dockerfile handles dependency installation (PHP, Composer, Node.js).
2. The docker-entrypoint.sh script runs on startup to:
   • Clear and rebuild caches (php artisan optimize).
   • Run database migrations automatically (php artisan migrate --force).
   • Start the Apache server.

Important: Ensure your environment variables (especially DB_CONNECTION, DB_HOST, etc.) are correctly set in your deployment environment.

Local Development

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/fortune-c/chipper.git
   cd chipper

2. Install Dependencies

   composer install
   npm install

3. Environment Setup

   cp .env.example .env
   # Edit .env to set DB_CONNECTION=sqlite or pgsql

4. Key & Migrations

   php artisan key:generate
   touch database/database.sqlite # If using SQLite
   php artisan migrate
   php artisan storage:link

5. Serve

   npm run dev
   php artisan serve

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please fork the repository, make your changes on a feature branch, and open a pull request with a clear description of your changes.

License

MIT — see LICENSE file for details.

Contact

Project maintained by fortune-c — open issues or pull requests in the repository: https://github.com/fortune-c/chipper