DevDuck 🦆

Rubber duck debugging is a beloved hacker tradition — just by explaining your code out loud, you often discover the solution. We asked ourselves: what if the duck could actually respond? With one of us passionate about hardware (Mechatronics Engineering) and the other passionate about AI/ML (Computer Science), we set out to bring a rubber duck to life.

DevDuck is a sentiment-aware chatbot paired with a physical duck:

-🗣️ Hackers chat with DevDuck like they would with a debugging buddy.

-🤖 DevDuck analyzes the tone and sentiment of the conversation.

-🦆 The physical duck reacts with movements that match the mood — encouragement if you’re frustrated, celebration if you’re excited, calm nods when things make sense.

-💬 On top of that, DevDuck can support general coding-related discussions and is designed to expand into deeper debugging assistance.

Features

• Voice Listening Toggle - Start/stop listening with a simple button
• Conversation History - Track all interactions in a dropdown
• Basic Sentiment Analysis - Understand developer mood from text
• Web API - RESTful endpoints for frontend communication
• Electron Frontend - Clean, minimal desktop interface

Quick Start

1. Install Python Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Start the API Server

python scripts/start_api.py

The API will be available at: http://localhost:8001

3. Start the Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

npm start

4. Start the API gateway

ngrok http 8001

Don't forget to update VAPI variables in renderer.js!

API Endpoints

• GET / - Root; lists available endpoints
• POST /listening/toggle - Toggle listening state
• GET /history - Get conversation history
• POST /history/clear - Clear conversation history
• GET /status - Get current system status
• GET /health - Health check
• POST /webhook/vapi - VAPI webhook endpoint
• POST /duck/talk/start - Start duck talking animation
• POST /duck/talk/stop - Stop duck talking animation
• POST /duck/gesture/{name} - Trigger a gesture (nod, shake, left, right, greet, goodluck)
• POST /get_code_snippet - Read and return file contents
• POST /store_context - Store a snippet/context payload
• POST /retrieve_context - Retrieve a stored context by snippet id

Project Structure

DevDuck/
├── arduino/                 # Arduino servo controller
│   └── devduck_controller/
│       └── devduck_controller.ino
├── devduck/                 # Python backend
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── ai/
│   │   └── __init__.py      # VAPI integration hooks
│   ├── analysis/
│   │   └── __init__.py      # Sentiment analysis
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── assistant_config.py
│   │   └── vapi_webhook.py  # FastAPI app & endpoints
│   ├── hardware/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── usb_communication.py
│   └── utils/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── security.py
├── frontend/                # Electron desktop app
│   ├── main.js              # Electron main process
│   ├── package.json         # Frontend dependencies
│   ├── package-lock.json
│   └── renderer/            # Frontend UI files
│       ├── index.html
│       ├── renderer.js
│       └── styles.css
├── scripts/
│   └── start_api.py         # Starts FastAPI on port 8001

Hardware Setup

The Arduino controller manages servo movements for the physical duck. See arduino/devduck_controller/ for the servo control code.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Authors

• DJ Leamen
• Nahl Farhan