AI-Powered Note App

A note-taking app with Markdown editing, account-based note storage, client-side search, and optional AI-generated summaries and tags.

Features

• Register and sign in with JWT authentication.
• Create, edit, list, and delete notes stored in PostgreSQL.
• Write Markdown with a formatting toolbar and switch to rendered preview.
• Search loaded notes by title, content, summary, or tag; filter by AI insight status and tag.
• Generate and save a note summary and up to eight tags using the OpenAI API.

Semantic search, collaboration, and offline sync are planned; they are not implemented in the current version.

Stack

• Frontend: React 18, Vite, React Router, Tailwind CSS, and @uiw/react-md-editor.
• Backend: Node.js 20+, Express, and Sequelize 6.
• Database: PostgreSQL.
• Authentication: bcrypt password hashing and signed JWT bearer tokens.
• AI: OpenAI Chat Completions API; the API key stays on the backend.

Project Structure

frontend/
  src/
    components/   Auth form, sidebar, note list, Markdown editor
    hooks/        Authentication context and notes state
    pages/        Notes dashboard
    services/     Auth and note API clients
backend/
  src/
    config/       Sequelize/PostgreSQL connection
    controllers/  Auth and note request handlers
    middleware/   JWT authentication and error handling
    models/       Sequelize User and Note models
    routes/       Versioned API routes
    services/     OpenAI summarization and tagging

Local Development

Prerequisites: Node.js 20 or newer and a running PostgreSQL server. Create a database named ai_notes.

1. Copy backend/.env.example to backend/.env.
2. Set DATABASE_URL to your PostgreSQL connection string and replace JWT_SECRET with a long random value. Set CLIENT_ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173 to match Vite's default origin. Set OPENAI_API_KEY to enable summaries and tagging; other app features work without it.
3. In backend/, run npm install, then npm run dev. The API listens on http://localhost:4000.
4. Copy frontend/.env.example to frontend/.env. In frontend/, run npm install, then npm run dev. Vite serves the app at http://localhost:5173.

The backend exposes GET /health. During development it creates missing Sequelize tables on startup with sequelize.sync(). Use migrations and review schema changes explicitly in production; do not rely on startup sync as a migration strategy.

API

All note endpoints require Authorization: Bearer <token>. Registration requires a valid email and a password of at least eight characters. Notes are scoped to the authenticated user.

Method	Path	Description
POST	/api/v1/auth/register	Create an account; body: { "email", "password" }
POST	/api/v1/auth/login	Sign in; returns { "user", "token" }
POST	/api/v1/notes	Create a note; body: { "title", "content?" }
GET	/api/v1/notes	List the authenticated user's notes
PUT	/api/v1/notes/:id	Update title and/or content
DELETE	/api/v1/notes/:id	Delete a note; returns 204 on success
POST	/api/v1/notes/:id/summarize	Generate and persist summary and tags

The summarize endpoint returns 503 when OPENAI_API_KEY is not configured. The AI service currently provides summaries and tags only; it does not generate embeddings.

Checks

• Backend syntax check: run npm run check in backend/.
• Frontend production build: run npm run build in frontend/.

Roadmap

• Semantic search with stored embeddings.
• Collaborative editing.
• Offline mode and sync.
• Mobile client and CI/CD pipeline.