SkillSwap

SkillSwap is a web application for exchanging skills and learning resources. Users can create profiles, list skills they can offer or want to learn, search for other users and skills, chat in real time, and share learning resources through a browser-based peer-to-peer workflow.

Features

• Account registration and login
• User profiles with profile photo and skill lists
• Dashboard statistics and recent conversations
• Skill discovery and personal skill management
• Real-time one-to-one chat over WebSockets
• File attachments in conversations
• Skill-linked resource publishing and discovery
• Peer-to-peer resource coordination with WebSockets and WebRTC
• Resource requests, approvals, connection management, swarm statistics, and ratings

Architecture

• Backend: Go HTTP server with PostgreSQL persistence
• Frontend: Static HTML, CSS, and browser JavaScript served by the Go server
• Real-time communication: WebSockets for chat and P2P coordination; WebRTC is used by the browser P2P client for direct peer connections
• Database: PostgreSQL 15 or later
• Migrations: Core, P2P, and skill-connection tables are created automatically when the backend starts

Requirements

For a local installation:

• Go 1.24 or later (the module specifies toolchain Go 1.24.5)
• PostgreSQL 15 or later
• A modern browser with WebSocket and WebRTC support

Docker Compose is also included, but see Docker notes before using it.

Local Setup

1. Create the local environment file:

   cp .env.example .env

2. If PostgreSQL is running on the host, edit .env and set:

   DB_HOST=localhost
   DB_PORT=5432
   DB_USER=postgres
   DB_PASSWORD=postgres
   DB_NAME=skillswap

   Create the database if it does not already exist:

   createdb -U postgres skillswap

   The default credentials above are intended for local development. Use a dedicated database user and a strong password outside development.

3. Build the backend from its Go module directory:

   cd backend
   go mod download
   go build -o skillswap .
   cd ..

4. Start the server from the repository root:

   ./backend/skillswap

   Starting from the repository root is important because the server serves pages from ./frontend and uploaded content from ./uploads and ./p2p_resources.

5. Open http://localhost:8080 and create an account.

On startup, the backend connects to PostgreSQL and creates or updates the required tables and indexes. If the database is unavailable, the process exits with a connection error.

Docker Notes

The included docker-compose.yml starts PostgreSQL and builds the backend container:

docker compose up --build

The database service is configured for postgres / postgres and exposes port 5432; the backend exposes port 8080.

The current backend image only copies the contents of backend/. Since the server serves frontend/ using relative paths, the Compose backend service does not currently include the frontend files and is therefore not a complete browser-serving deployment. For a working local development setup, use the Local Setup instructions. A production Docker deployment should mount or copy the repository's frontend/ directory into the backend image and provide persistent storage for uploads and P2P resources.

To stop the Compose services:

docker compose down

Add -v only when you intentionally want to delete the PostgreSQL volume and all local database data.

Configuration

The backend reads these environment variables, falling back to the shown defaults when they are not set:

Variable	Default	Description
DB_HOST	localhost	PostgreSQL hostname; use db inside Compose
DB_PORT	5432	PostgreSQL port
DB_USER	postgres	PostgreSQL user
DB_PASSWORD	postgres	PostgreSQL password
DB_NAME	skillswap	PostgreSQL database name

Do not commit .env. Use .env.example as the development template.

Application Routes

The Go server serves the main pages at:

/login, /signup, /dashboard, /profile, /chat, /my-skills, /find-skills, /find-resources, /p2p-dashboard, and /manage-connections.

The API is available under /api. The main groups are:

• Authentication: /api/signup, /api/login
• Profiles and discovery: /api/profile, /api/users/search, /api/skills/*
• Chat and files: /api/chats, /api/history, /api/upload, /api/file
• WebSockets: /api/ws, /api/p2p/ws
• P2P resources and transfers: /api/p2p/*
• Skill resources and connections: /api/skills/resources, /api/p2p/connections/*

The frontend API configuration is centralized in frontend/js/api-config.js.

Database Migrations

The backend performs its current migrations during startup. SQL files in backend/db/ are retained for initialization and manual migration workflows, including:

• init.sql for the base schema
• migrate.sql for updates to existing user and message columns
• p2p_migrate.sql and p2p_workflow_migrate.sql for P2P workflow schema changes
• skill_connections_migration.sql for skill-resource connection management

For an existing database where a manual migration is required, the repository includes platform-specific scripts:

cd backend
./run_migration.sh

On Windows, run backend\\run_migration.bat from a PostgreSQL-enabled command prompt.

Development Checks

Format and compile the Go backend with:

cd backend
find . -name '*.go' -print0 | xargs -0 gofmt -w
go test ./...
go build ./...

There is currently no automated test suite configured in package.json; the root package includes the ws dependency for WebSocket-related development tooling.

Project Layout

backend/
  db/          PostgreSQL schema and migration files
  handlers/    HTTP and WebSocket handlers
  models/      Go data models
  main.go      Server routes and static file serving
frontend/      HTML pages, CSS, browser JavaScript, and static assets
docker-compose.yml
.env.example
package.json

License

No project license has been declared yet.