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SnapConnect is a GauntletAI project that re-imagines Snapchat for college creatives with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Built as a semi-public sharing platform, it combines the ephemeral nature of disappearing content with rapid AI assistance to help students share campus life, creative projects, and maintain progress accountability. The app leverages modern AI to enhance social interactions through intelligent captions, automated tagging, and creative inspiration - perfect for the fast-paced, goal-oriented college lifestyle.

Sure — here’s the complete section with your expanded niche and the 6 RAG-focused user stories, formatted for your README:

User Type: Social Connectors Niche: College creatives who document progress on projects and personal goals.

These are students who treat social media as a shared studio journal: they post work-in-progress art, music riffs, coding side-projects, hackathon builds, fitness milestones, and study breakthroughs. They crave:

• ✏️ Quick, low-friction ways to share updates
• 💡 Playful AI prompts that spark new content ideas
• 🤝 A campus-sized community that holds them accountable and celebrates small wins

1. "As a student, I want AI to generate a caption for my photo based on what it looks like and any tags I add, so posting updates is fast and fun."

2. "As a student, I want AI to automatically generate relevant tags when I upload a post, so others with similar interests can discover it easily."

3. "As a student, I want to quickly reply to a friend’s Snap with a fun reaction or follow-up, so our connections feel lightweight but meaningful."

4. "As a student, I want to explore content based on my selected interests, so I can find people who care about the same things I do."

5. "As a student, I want an 'Inspire Me' prompt powered by AI when I go to post, so I never run out of ideas to share with the community."

6. "As a student, I want to edit my favorite interests and see them highlighted on the Discover feed, so the app reflects what I care about most right now."

• 📷 Camera with expo-camera
• ⏳ 24-hour disappearing snaps
• 🔐 Firebase Auth, Storage & Firestore
• 📰 Feed & Discover tabs
• ⚙️ Settings (first-name + 5 favorite interests)

1. AI Caption – suggests fun captions when posting
2. AI Tag Generation – proposes up to three tags from caption
3. Quick Reply – one-tap AI response to a friend's snap
4. Favorites-First Discover – highlights user's 5 favorite interests
5. Dynamic Tag Search – type any tag → instant filtered feed
6. 🎨 Inspire Me – AI "creative prompt" generator for fresh post ideas

All RAG calls handled in Firebase Cloud Functions (OpenAI GPT-3.5-turbo) with secrets stored in Secret Manager.

Stack

• React Native + Expo SDK 50
• Zustand state
• Firebase Auth · Firestore · Storage · Cloud Functions
• OpenAI SDK
• Netlify (static PWA deploy)

git clone https://github.com/<user>/snapconnect2.git
cd snapconnect2
npm install
cp .env.example .env           # add Firebase + OpenAI keys
npx expo start                 # press "w" for web, or scan QR

Functions

cd functions
npm install
firebase login
firebase emulators:start

Create a .env file in the project root:

FIREBASE_API_KEY=
FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN=
FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID=
FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET=
FIREBASE_APP_ID=
OPENAI_API_KEY=

• expo export:web → web-build/ → Netlify CLI: netlify deploy --prod --dir=web-build
• firebase deploy --only functions for backend

• Friends & follower graph
• Group messaging
• Progressive web push notifications
• Vector search for richer RAG context

MIT