ChatMate

ChatMate – Your AI‑Powered Chatbot

ChatMate is a full‑stack Next.js application that turns any web browser into an intelligent, conversational interface. By combining client‑side local storage with server‑side AI flows powered by Genkit, it delivers a seamless chat experience that is both fast and privacy‑friendly. The core problem it solves is the need for a lightweight, self‑contained chatbot that can run offline or in isolated environments while still leveraging powerful AI services for summarization, voice synthesis, and speech recognition.

At its heart, ChatMate manages conversation state entirely in the browser’s local storage. This means that users can start a new chat, revisit past sessions, or delete history without any server‑side persistence. When the user sends a message, the front end forwards it to a Next.js API route that invokes Genkit flows. These flows perform three key AI tasks: generating an answer, summarizing the last ten messages for quick context, and converting text responses to speech. The same flows also support voice input by transcribing audio blobs captured through the MediaRecorder API, allowing hands‑free interaction.

Key features include:

• Secure authentication via Firebase and NextAuth.js, ensuring that only authorized users can access their chat histories.
• Collapsible conversation sidebar for instant navigation between multiple threads, with the ability to rename or delete chats.
• AI‑powered summarization that surfaces a concise recap of recent dialogue, helping users maintain context in long sessions.
• Text‑to‑speech and voice input for accessibility, enabling spoken responses and hands‑free typing.
• Theme toggle that supports both light and dark modes, improving usability across lighting conditions.
• Microphone and speaker testing tools that let developers quickly verify audio devices before engaging the bot.

In real‑world scenarios, ChatMate shines as a developer playground for prototyping AI assistants, a customer support chatbot that runs locally in sensitive environments, or an educational tool where students can experiment with conversational AI without exposing data to external services. Its tight integration with Genkit means that any new AI feature—such as sentiment analysis or custom knowledge bases—can be added with minimal friction. The combination of local storage, robust authentication, and modular AI flows gives developers a powerful, privacy‑respectful foundation for building next‑generation conversational applications.