BuckyChat

BuckyChat is a lean campus-only random video chat MVP for verified @wisc.edu users.

Stack

• Frontend: React, Vite, TypeScript, Supabase JS
• Backend: Go, Fiber, Fiber WebSocket
• Auth and database: Supabase Auth + Postgres
• Video: native WebRTC with Google STUN, static TURN, or Cloudflare TURN
• Deployment target: Vercel frontend and a single Railway backend instance for MVP

Local setup

1. Create a Supabase project and run supabase/migrations/001_madfriends.sql.
2. Configure the Before User Created hook as described in docs/supabase-setup.md.
3. Copy .env.example to .env and fill in Supabase values. The backend needs the Supabase Postgres connection string in DATABASE_URL; use a server-side connection string from Supabase, not the frontend anon key.
4. Start the backend:

cd videochat-server
go run ./cmd/server

5. Start the frontend:

cd videochat-client
npm install
npm run dev

TURN configuration

By default, the backend returns Google STUN from TURN_URLS. For a static TURN server, set TURN_URLS to comma-separated turn: or turns: URLs and provide TURN_USERNAME plus TURN_CREDENTIAL.

For Cloudflare Realtime TURN, keep the long-lived key server-side and set:

CLOUDFLARE_TURN_KEY_ID="..."
CLOUDFLARE_TURN_API_TOKEN="..."
CLOUDFLARE_TURN_TTL=86400

When both Cloudflare variables are present, /api/ice-config generates short-lived iceServers for the browser. CLOUDFLARE_TURN_TTL should be longer than the longest expected call.

MVP constraints

• Only exact @wisc.edu email addresses can sign up.
• Supabase owns password auth, email confirmation, sessions, and JWT issuance.
• The Go backend validates Supabase access tokens before protected HTTP or WebSocket actions.
• Matchmaking and rooms are in memory, so production MVP must run one backend instance.
• Calls are not recorded and media is not stored.

CI/CD

GitHub Actions runs CI on every pull request and every push to main.

Pushes to main also deploy:

• Frontend: Vercel
• Backend: Railway

Add these GitHub repository secrets before the deploy workflow can run:

• VITE_SUPABASE_URL
• VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY
• VITE_PASSWORD_RESET_REDIRECT_URL (optional; use a canonical /reset-password URL if needed)
• VITE_API_BASE_URL
• VITE_WS_BASE_URL
• VERCEL_TOKEN
• VERCEL_ORG_ID
• VERCEL_PROJECT_ID
• RAILWAY_TOKEN

Set backend runtime environment variables in the Railway dashboard or via the Railway CLI:

railway variables set \
  DATABASE_URL="..." \
  SUPABASE_URL="https://your-project-ref.supabase.co" \
  SUPABASE_JWKS_URL="https://your-project-ref.supabase.co/auth/v1/.well-known/jwks.json" \
  CLOUDFLARE_TURN_KEY_ID="..." \
  CLOUDFLARE_TURN_API_TOKEN="..."