A full-featured real-time chat app — Slack-style UI, WebRTC calls, full-text search, XMPP/Jabber bridge, and a massive pre-loaded dataset for realistic testing. Check out ARCHITECTURE and FEATURES.
git clone <repo-url>
cd da-messenger
docker compose upOpen → http://localhost:3000
No .env files. No manual migrations. No extra commands. It works.
THE DATABASE IS AUTOMATICALLY POPULATED WITH 3 YEARS OF REALISTIC CHAT HISTORY ON THE VERY FIRST docker compose up.
This is handled by the db-seed Docker service that runs once (skipped on subsequent restarts).
| Data | Volume |
|---|---|
| 👤 Users | 300 (seed_user_1 … seed_user_300) |
| 💬 Rooms | 1 000 public rooms across 20 topic categories |
| 📨 Messages | ~12 600 000 — 3 years of history, 10–20 messages/day per room |
| 📎 Attachments | ~500 000 fake file records (~4% of messages) |
Email: seed_1@seed.test (or seed_2@seed.test … seed_300@seed.test)
Password: password123
⏱ Seeding takes ~5–10 minutes on first boot. The app is fully usable while seeding runs — rooms and messages appear progressively. On every subsequent
docker compose up, seeding is skipped automatically (checks ifseed_user_1already exists).
💾 To start completely fresh:
docker compose down -v && docker compose up
postgres → healthy
├── minio → healthy
│ └── minio-init → creates S3 bucket → exits
├── backend → prisma migrate deploy → server starts → healthy
│ ├── db-seed → seeds 12M+ rows on first run → exits
│ └── frontend → nginx serving React SPA
└── pgadmin → DB admin UI
| Service | URL | Credentials |
|---|---|---|
| App | http://localhost:3000 | register or use seed account |
| API | http://localhost:4000 | — |
| pgAdmin | http://localhost:5050 | admin@admin.com / admin |
| MinIO console | http://localhost:9001 | minioadmin / minioadmin |
| XMPP (Jabber) | localhost:5222 | your DAMessenger credentials |
After login the sidebar lists all your joined rooms. Seed users are pre-joined to ~30 rooms.
Each room has thousands of messages spanning 3 years. History loads in pages of 30 — click "↑ Load older messages" at the top or scroll up. After jumping to a search result, "↓ Jump to present" returns to the live feed.
Full-text search across all messages and files in rooms you belong to. Supports filter syntax. Results jump directly to the message in history.
Click Settings ⚙ in the top-right of any room you own or admin.
Complete feature reference (every detail): docs/FEATURES.md
- Register with email + username + password (argon2id hashing)
- Persistent login across browser restarts (JWT in httpOnly cookie)
- Forgot password / password reset flow
- Change password while logged in
- Delete account (cascades owned rooms, messages, files)
- Online / AFK / Offline — updates in < 2 s via Socket.io
- AFK after 1 min of inactivity across all open tabs
- Multi-tab aware: online if any tab is active
- Presence shown in room member list and contacts sidebar
- Create public or private rooms
- Public room catalog with search — 1 000 rooms available in demo data
- Join/leave public rooms freely; invite-only for private rooms
- Roles: Owner → Admins → Members
- Admin actions: ban/unban, remove members, manage admins, delete messages
- Owner: all admin actions + delete room
- Room settings: rename, description, toggle public/private
- Real-time delivery via Socket.io (< 3 s)
- Lazy history loading — 30 messages at a time, button at top to load older
- Jump to present — one click returns from deep history to the live feed
- Reply to any message (quoted inline)
- Edit your own messages (
editedindicator shown) - Delete messages (author or room admin)
- Emoji reactions
- Forward messages to any accessible room
- Typing indicators
- Unread badge + "New messages" divider on first unread
- Date dividers between message groups
- Automatic scroll-to-bottom when at the live end; no forced scroll when reading history
- Upload via button or paste directly from clipboard
- Images displayed inline; other files as download cards
- Optional comment per attachment
- Access control enforced server-side — only current room members can download
- Files persist even if uploader leaves; files are deleted only when the room is deleted
- Max file: 20 MB · Max image: 3 MB · Stored in MinIO (S3-compatible)
- Requires mutual friendship (send request → accept)
- Identical feature set to rooms (replies, edits, files, reactions, calls)
- User-to-user ban freezes the DM thread (history remains, read-only)
- 1-on-1 voice and video calls inside DMs
- Mute mic / toggle camera during a call
- Picture-in-picture local preview
- STUN + TURN relay fallback (works across NATs and firewalls via
openrelay.metered.ca) - Call timer, status display (ringing → connecting → connected)
- ⌘K (Mac) / Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux)
- Searches messages and file attachments across all accessible rooms/DMs
- Filter tokens:
in:#room-name— search within a specific roomin:@username— search in DM with someonefrom:@username— messages by a specific author
↑↓to navigate results,↵to jump to that message in history- Powered by PostgreSQL
tsvectorGIN indexes +ts_headlinesnippets
- ejabberd server bundled, bridged via XEP-0114 component protocol
- Connect any Jabber client (Gajim, Pidgin, Conversations) with your DAMessenger credentials
- Admin dashboard: XMPP Bridge in sidebar — bridge status, connected client count, S2S federation stats
- S2S federation (two independent XMPP servers messaging each other) via
--profile federation
- See all active sessions with browser user-agent and IP
- Remotely log out any specific session
- Sign-out only invalidates the current session
- Go to http://localhost:3000
- Sign in:
seed_1@seed.test/password123 - Click any
seed-*room in the sidebar → scroll up to browse 3 years of history - Press ⌘K → type
deploy stagingorbug in production→ press ↵ to jump to the message
Open two browser windows (or one normal + one incognito). Sign in as different seed users (seed_1@seed.test, seed_2@seed.test). Join the same room. Send messages — they appear instantly in both windows.
- Window A:
seed_1@seed.test→ Contacts → typeseed_user_2→ Send Request - Window B:
seed_2@seed.test→ Contacts → accept the request - Either window: click the user → Send DM → a private channel opens
- Test the 📞 or 🎥 button in the DM header for a voice/video call
In any room or DM:
- Click the paperclip icon to pick a file
- Or paste an image from clipboard directly into the message input (Ctrl+V / ⌘V)
- Register a fresh account → create a new room (+ button at bottom of sidebar)
- Settings ⚙ → Invitations → invite a seed user by username
- Settings ⚙ → Members → Ban them
- Sign in as that seed user in another tab — the room is gone
Install Gajim (desktop) or Conversations (Android).
Add an account:
- Server:
xmpp.localhost - Port:
5222 - Username / Password: any DAMessenger account
- Disable TLS certificate verification (dev environment)
Check the XMPP Bridge sidebar page — the connected client appears within a few seconds.
docker compose --profile federation up -d- Server A:
xmpp.localhost→localhost:5222 - Server B:
xmpp-b.localhost→localhost:5223
Connect one Jabber client to each, add a cross-server contact (user@xmpp-b.localhost). The S2S session appears in the XMPP Bridge admin page.
| Document | What's inside |
|---|---|
| docs/ARCHITECTURE.md | DB schema, message sequencing, presence state machine, WebRTC call flow, XMPP bridge protocol, FTS implementation, all Socket.io events, startup dependency graph, security notes |
| docs/FEATURES.md | Complete feature reference — every feature, option, and behaviour grouped by area |
Browser (React + Socket.io)
│
▼
nginx :3000 ──proxy /api/──▶ Express :4000
──proxy /socket.io/──▶ Socket.io
│
┌──────────┴──────────┐
PostgreSQL MinIO S3
:5432 :9000
(Prisma) (file storage)
│
XEP-0114 bridge
│
ejabberd :5222
│ (S2S, optional)
ejabberd-b :5223
Stack:
| Layer | Tech |
|---|---|
| Frontend | React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Zustand, React Query |
| Backend | Node.js, Express, Socket.io, Prisma ORM, argon2, JWT |
| Database | PostgreSQL 16 (FTS via tsvector GIN indexes, cursor-based pagination) |
| File storage | MinIO S3-compatible object store |
| Real-time | Socket.io (WebSocket + HTTP long-poll fallback) |
| Calls | WebRTC — STUN/TURN via Google STUN + openrelay.metered.ca |
| XMPP | ejabberd + Node.js XEP-0114 component bridge |
Requires the stack to be running (docker compose up).
cd backend
npm test # all 92 backend tests
npx vitest run tests/xmpp.test.ts # XMPP + account deletion (22 tests)
# Federation load test (requires --profile federation)
docker compose --profile federation up -d ejabberd-b
npx vitest run tests/federation.test.ts| Suite | Tests |
|---|---|
| auth | 11 |
| rooms | 12 |
| messages | 10 |
| watermarks | 8 |
| uploads | 7 |
| friends | 8 |
| directs | 5 |
| xmpp | 22 |
| federation | 9 |
| total | 92 |
To wipe seed data and re-seed:
# Remove existing seed rows
docker compose exec postgres psql -U chat -d chat \
-c "DELETE FROM \"Room\" WHERE name LIKE 'seed-%'"
docker compose exec postgres psql -U chat -d chat \
-c "DELETE FROM \"User\" WHERE username LIKE 'seed\_user\_%' ESCAPE '\\'"
# Run the seed script (~5–10 min)
docker compose exec -T postgres psql -U chat -d chat \
< backend/scripts/seed.sqlComplete reset (destroys all data including your own accounts):
docker compose down -v # removes all Docker volumes
docker compose up # fresh start — auto-seeds againAll defaults work out of the box for local dev. Override in docker-compose.yml for production:
| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
JWT_SECRET |
supersecretjwtkey_change_in_prod |
Change this in production |
DATABASE_URL |
postgresql://chat:chat@postgres:5432/chat |
PostgreSQL DSN |
XMPP_COMPONENT_SECRET |
bridgesecret |
ejabberd bridge password |
FRONTEND_URL |
http://localhost:3000 |
CORS allowed origin |
S3_ENDPOINT |
http://minio:9000 |
MinIO / S3 URL |
- Open http://localhost:5050 → log in
admin@admin.com/admin - Add New Server → fill in:
- Host:
postgres· Port:5432 - Database:
chat· Username:chat· Password:chat
- Host: