CogniSpace

A fast, keyboard-first workspace for notes, docs and sprints — with an AI Copilot that edits the page you are on.

Live demo · API health

The API runs on a free Render instance and sleeps when idle. The first request can take up to ~30 seconds; the app shows a "Waking up the server" banner while it starts.

Features

Area	What you get
Home	Greeting, workspace stats, recent pages, in-flight tasks, first-run checklist
Editor	TipTap block editor: headings, to-dos, toggles, quotes, code, dividers. / menu with keyboard navigation and filtering. Selection toolbar
Copilot	Gemini streaming over SSE. Improve / summarize a selection, or ask about the open page. Review, insert, undo. Stop button
Sprint board	Drag-and-drop Kanban + table view, inline editing, sprint progress
Reliability	Autosave only reports Saved after the server confirms. Offline retries with backoff. Optimistic concurrency (version check) with a "load theirs / keep mine" flow
History	Automatic snapshots (at most one per 2 min, 50 per page). One-click restore that keeps the overwritten text in history
Safety nets	Undo for page delete and AI inserts. Export a page as HTML, or all data as JSON. Delete account (password-confirmed)
Command palette	⌘K searches page titles and content and runs commands
UX	Dark / light themes, responsive layout, prefers-reduced-motion respected

Shortcuts: ⌘K palette · / blocks · ⌘J Copilot · ⌘B sidebar.

Architecture

React 19 + Vite + Tailwind  ──HTTPS──▶  Express 5 API  ──▶  MongoDB (Mongoose)
 (Vercel)                                (Render)             (Atlas)
   │                                        │
   │  SSE stream                            └──▶ Gemini (@google/genai)
   └────────────────────────────────────────────────▶ /api/ai/transform

• Auth: bcrypt (cost 12) + JWT (7 days) in an httpOnly cookie, with a Bearer-token fallback for browsers that block third-party cookies.
• Documents carry a version. PATCH accepts baseVersion; a mismatch returns 409 with the current document instead of overwriting.
• Version history is a separate DocumentVersion collection, trimmed to the 50 newest per page.
• AI output is sanitized with an allowlist sanitizer before it is rendered or inserted.
• Rate limits: global, auth (20 / 15 min) and AI (10 / min and AI_DAILY_LIMIT per user per day).

Design decisions worth knowing

• Honest autosave. The earlier version swallowed network errors and still showed "Saved". The sync hook (src/hooks/useDocSync.ts) merges pending edits per page, serializes requests, retries with backoff and surfaces conflicts.
• Production refuses to boot unsafe. No JWT_SECRET or no reachable MONGODB_URI in production is a fatal error — never a silent in-memory database.
• No real-time multiplayer. Two tabs are detected with version checks, but there is no live co-editing (that would need CRDTs / websockets).

Getting started

Requires Node 20+.

npm ci
cp .env.example .env     # optional in development
npm start                # API on :3001 (embedded in-memory MongoDB when MONGODB_URI is empty)
npm run dev              # Vite on :5173 (proxies /api to :3001)

Variable	Required in prod	Purpose
JWT_SECRET	yes	Signs session tokens (render.yaml generates one)
MONGODB_URI	yes	MongoDB Atlas connection string
CORS_ORIGINS	yes	Comma-separated browser origins, e.g. your Vercel URL
GEMINI_API_KEY	for AI	Copilot. Without it production returns a clear error
GEMINI_MODEL	no	Defaults to gemini-3.8-flash
AI_DAILY_LIMIT	no	Per-user AI requests per day (default 60)

Deploy

• API → Render: render.yaml builds with npm ci --omit=dev and starts node server/server.js. Set MONGODB_URI, GEMINI_API_KEY and CORS_ORIGINS in the dashboard.
• Web → Vercel: framework preset Vite; vercel.json already rewrites /api/* to the Render service.

Project layout

src/
  components/app/      Workspace shell, Home, Sidebar, Page, Sprint board, Copilot, Palette, Settings, History
  components/editor/   TipTap editor + slash menu
  components/landing/  Landing illustrations
  hooks/               useDocSync (autosave), useWorkspace (data), useCopilot, useTheme, useOnboarding
  utils/               sanitize, aiStream (SSE), api
server/
  server.js            Express app (auth, documents, versions, tasks, export, AI)
  controllers/         aiController (Gemini streaming)
  models/              User, Document, DocumentVersion, Task

Roadmap

• Automated tests (API integration tests, useDocSync unit tests, Playwright smoke test)
• Shared workspaces and page sharing
• Real-time co-editing
• Per-user AI usage dashboard

License

MIT © Karthik Uppari