🚀 PathForge

AI-powered personalized learning platform that helps students build structured learning journeys, generate dynamic AI roadmaps, track progress, chat with a roadmap-aware AI coach, and stay consistent with their career goals.

🌐 Live Demo: https://path-forge-zeta.vercel.app

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✨ Features

🔐 Authentication System

• User signup & login with JWT (access + refresh tokens)
• OTP email verification — single-use, expiring, brute-force protected
• Resend OTP with cooldown
• Forgot password via OTP with secure reset flow
• Protected routes, secure logout, delete account

👤 User Profile System

• Guided onboarding (target role, skill level, daily hours, interests, timeline)
• Edit profile with smart restrictions during roadmap cooldown
• Profile–roadmap synchronization

🤖 AI Coach (roadmap-grounded chat)

• Conversational AI coach that reads your actual roadmap before every reply
• References your real phases and tasks — never invents tasks, URLs, or resources
• Politely declines off-roadmap questions and bridges back to your journey
• Persistent chat history per user (survives refresh, new tabs, and devices)
• Clear chat with two-tap confirm

🗺️ AI-Powered Dynamic Roadmaps

Generate personalized roadmaps from your target role, skill level, daily hours, interests, and goal timeline:

• Multi-phase structured learning paths via Groq AI
• Per-task learning resources (real links + smart search fallback)
• Task completion tracking with automatic progress updates
• 14-day regeneration cooldown to prevent abuse and quota burn
• Stored in MongoDB — progress persists across sessions

📚 Curated Resources Library

• Hand-picked learning resources by category
• Complements the AI-generated per-task resources

📊 Progress Tracking & Productivity

• Progress %, current phase, and completion status
• Daily learning streaks and points
• AI tips on the dashboard (cached + manual refresh)
• Toast notifications

🛡️ Security & Abuse Prevention

• Single-use expiring OTPs, 5-attempt guess limit, resend cooldowns
• Rate limiting on auth, OTP, and AI endpoints
• Security headers and separate JWT secret support
• Roadmap regeneration cooldown (14 days)

🎨 Forge UI

• Custom forge theme — warm charcoal, ember orange, Fraunces + Inter
• Fully responsive, mobile-first (verified down to 320px)
• Desktop sidebar rail + mobile bottom navigation
• Smart redirects — unknown URLs go to the dashboard when logged in, landing page when logged out

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🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

• React + Vite
• Tailwind CSS v4
• React Router DOM
• Axios (with JWT refresh interceptor)
• React Hot Toast

Backend

• Node.js + Express.js
• Mongoose (MongoDB Atlas)
• JWT auth (access + refresh), bcryptjs
• Groq SDK (qwen/qwen3.8-27b)
• Nodemailer (local dev) / Brevo (production email)

Deployment

• Vercel (frontend) + Render (backend)
• GitHub — Render & Vercel auto-deploy on push

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📂 Project Structure

PathForge/
├── client/
│   └── src/
│       ├── api.js            # axios instance + token refresh
│       ├── main.jsx
│       ├── App.jsx
│       ├── index.css         # forge design system
│       ├── components/       # Sidebar, UserMenu, PageLoader...
│       ├── layouts/          # DashboardLayout
│       ├── pages/            # Landing, Dashboard, Roadmap, Coach...
│       └── routes/           # AppRoutes
├── server/
│   └── src/
│       ├── server.js
│       ├── controllers/      # auth, otp, profile, roadmap, tip, coach...
│       ├── routes/
│       ├── middleware/       # auth, security (rate limit + headers)
│       ├── models/           # user, profile, roadmap, conversation...
│       └── utils/            # groq, sendEmail, generateOTP, roadmapLock
└── README.md

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⚙️ Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/omprakashparida/PathForge.git
cd PathForge

Install frontend dependencies:

cd client
npm install

Install backend dependencies:

cd ../server
npm install

Run frontend:

npm run dev

Run backend:

npm start

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🔑 Environment Variables

Create a .env file inside server/:

PORT=5000

MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string

JWT_SECRET=your_access_token_secret
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=your_refresh_token_secret   # optional, falls back to JWT_SECRET

CORS_ORIGINS=https://your-frontend.vercel.app,http://localhost:5173

GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_api_key
GROQ_ROADMAP_MODEL=qwen/qwen3.8-27b            # optional override
GROQ_COACH_MODEL=qwen/qwen3.8-27b              # optional override

# Local dev email (Gmail)
EMAIL_USER=your_email
EMAIL_PASS=your_app_password

# Production email (Brevo)
BREVO_API_KEY=your_brevo_api_key
BREVO_SENDER_EMAIL=your_sender_email

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🧠 AI Workflow

User Profile (role, level, hours, timeline, interests)
        ↓
Groq AI (qwen/qwen3.8-27b)
        ↓
Dynamic Roadmap (phases → tasks → resources)
        ↓
MongoDB Storage
        ↓
Progress Tracking (completion %, streaks, points)

AI Coach (per message):
  Profile + Roadmap + Chat History → Groq → Grounded reply → MongoDB

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🚀 Future Improvements

• Mock Interview Assistant
• Resume Analyzer
• Google / GitHub OAuth
• Achievement Badges & Leaderboards
• Daily Coding Challenges
• Community Discussions
• RAG over larger resource libraries

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👨‍💻 Author

Om Prakash Parida — @omprakashparida

Built with ❤️ using MERN Stack + AI