Nexora

Mentorship & Career Growth Platform

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📖 Project Description

Nexora is a mentorship and career-growth platform built to connect students with experienced mentors through a structured, transparent, and scheduling-first system. The current MVP focuses on a One-on-One Mentor Slot Booking System, allowing students to discover mentors, view real-time availability, and book sessions seamlessly — while giving mentors and institutions the tools to manage time, verify identity, and track engagement.

Nexora is designed to scale from individual mentor-student interactions to institution-wide mentorship programs.

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❓ Problem Statement

Mentorship today is fragmented and inaccessible at scale:

• Students struggle to find verified, relevant mentors for their career goals.
• Scheduling happens through scattered channels — DMs, spreadsheets, and email threads.
• Mentors lack a centralized way to manage availability and avoid double-booking.
• Training organizations and institutions have no unified dashboard to oversee mentorship activity, verify mentors, or measure outcomes.
• Existing solutions are either too generic (calendar tools) or too expensive/closed (enterprise mentorship SaaS).

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💡 Solution Overview

Nexora solves this with a purpose-built platform that combines:

• Role-based access for students, mentors, and institution admins.
• Real-time slot availability so double-bookings and stale data are eliminated.
• A structured booking flow — discover, view profile, pick a slot, confirm, get notified.
• Verification workflows so institutions can trust the mentors on their platform.
• A foundation built to scale — from a single mentor-student MVP to multi-institution deployments.

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✨ Key Features

Feature	Description
🔐 Student Registration/Login	Secure sign-up and authentication for students via Supabase Auth
🔐 Mentor Registration/Login	Dedicated onboarding and authentication flow for mentors
🛡️ Role-Based Access Control	Distinct permissions and views for Students, Mentors, and Admins
👤 Mentor Profiles	Public profiles showcasing expertise, experience, and bio
📅 Availability Slot Management	Mentors define and update their available time slots
📌 Slot Booking System	Students browse and book open mentor slots in real time
📧 Email Notifications	Automated booking confirmations and reminders via Resend
⚡ Real-Time Updates	Live slot availability powered by Supabase Realtime
🧑‍💼 Admin Dashboard	Centralized oversight for institutions and platform admins
✅ Mentor Verification	Verification workflow to ensure mentor authenticity and quality

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Frontend

• React.js — Component-based UI
• Tailwind CSS — Utility-first styling

Backend

• Node.js — Runtime environment
• Express.js — REST API framework

Database & Auth

• PostgreSQL via Supabase — Relational data store
• Supabase Authentication — User auth & session management
• Supabase Realtime — Live data subscriptions

Communication

• Resend Email API — Transactional email delivery

Deployment

• Vercel — Frontend hosting
• Render — Backend hosting

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🏗️ System Architecture Summary

┌─────────────────┐         ┌──────────────────┐         ┌────────────────────┐
│   React Client   │  HTTPS  │  Express.js API   │  SQL    │  Supabase (Postgres)│
│  (Vercel hosted)  │◄──────►│  (Render hosted)  │◄──────►│  Auth + DB + Realtime│
└─────────────────┘         └──────────────────┘         └────────────────────┘
        │                            │                              │
        │                            ▼                              │
        │                  ┌──────────────────┐                     │
        └─────────────────►│   Resend Email API │◄────────────────────┘
                            │ (Notifications)    │
                            └──────────────────┘

Flow Summary:

1. The React client handles UI, auth state, and slot booking interactions.
2. The Express.js API handles business logic, validation, and route protection.
3. Supabase serves as the source of truth for users, mentor data, and slots — and pushes real-time updates back to the client.
4. Resend dispatches transactional emails (booking confirmations, reminders) triggered by backend events.

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📁 Project Structure

nexora/
├── client/                     # React frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/         # Reusable UI components
│   │   ├── pages/               # Route-level pages
│   │   ├── hooks/               # Custom React hooks
│   │   ├── context/              # Auth & global state context
│   │   ├── services/             # API call wrappers
│   │   └── utils/                # Helper functions
│   ├── public/
│   └── package.json
│
├── server/                     # Express backend
│   ├── controllers/             # Route logic
│   ├── routes/                  # API route definitions
│   ├── middleware/               # Auth, validation, error handling
│   ├── config/                   # Supabase & environment config
│   ├── utils/                    # Helper functions
│   └── package.json
│
├── .env.example                # Sample environment variables
├── README.md
└── LICENSE

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⚙️ Installation Guide

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• npm or yarn
• A Supabase project (free tier works)
• A Resend API key

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Itzzavdheshh/NEXORA.git
cd NEXORA

Install Dependencies

# Install client dependencies
cd client
npm install

# Install server dependencies
cd ../server
npm install

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🔑 Environment Variables

Create a .env file in both client/ and server/ directories based on .env.example.

Server (server/.env)

Variable	Description
PORT	Port for the Express server
SUPABASE_URL	Your Supabase project URL
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY	Supabase service role key (server-side only)
RESEND_API_KEY	API key for Resend email service
CLIENT_URL	Frontend URL for CORS configuration
JWT_SECRET	Secret used for token signing/verification

Client (client/.env)

Variable	Description
VITE_SUPABASE_URL	Your Supabase project URL
VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY	Supabase public anon key
VITE_API_BASE_URL	Base URL of the backend API

⚠️ Never commit .env files. Use .env.example as a reference template only.

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🚀 Running Locally

# Start the backend server
cd server
npm run dev

# In a separate terminal, start the frontend
cd client
npm run dev

By default:

• Frontend runs on http://localhost:5173
• Backend runs on http://localhost:5000

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☁️ Deployment Overview

Layer	Platform	Notes
Frontend	Vercel	Auto-deploys from the main branch; configure environment variables in the Vercel dashboard
Backend	Render	Deployed as a Web Service; configure environment variables in the Render dashboard
Database & Auth	Supabase	Managed Postgres, Auth, and Realtime — no separate deployment needed
Email	Resend	API-based, no infrastructure to deploy

Steps:

1. Push your code to GitHub.
2. Connect the client/ directory to Vercel as a new project.
3. Connect the server/ directory to Render as a new Web Service.
4. Add the required environment variables on both platforms.
5. Update VITE_API_BASE_URL (client) and CLIENT_URL (server) to point to the deployed URLs.

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🔭 Future Scope

• 📊 Mentor and student analytics dashboards
• 💬 In-app chat between mentors and students
• 🎥 Integrated video call support for sessions
• 🏢 Multi-institution / organization workspaces
• ⭐ Session ratings and feedback system
• 🤖 AI-based mentor recommendations
• 📱 Mobile application (React Native)
• 💳 Paid mentorship session support

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👥 Contributors

Thanks to everyone who contributes to Nexora!

Want to contribute? Check out our Contributing Guidelines and open issues to get started.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

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❤️ Support the Project

If this project has been useful to you, consider sponsoring my work.

Your support helps me maintain existing projects and build new open-source software.

➡️ https://github.com/sponsors/itzzavdheshh

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Built with ❤️ for students and mentors everywhere.