There are millions of students navigating college admissions — and most of them are doing it alone, scattered across hundreds of Reddit threads, Discord servers, and anonymous forums. Communities like r/ApplyingToCollege (1.3M+ members), r/college (2.9M+ members), and r/IntltoUSA (52k+ members) are full of students asking the same questions, looking for the same guidance — but getting buried under noise, outdated advice, and no real structure.

LinkU brings all of that into one place.

A platform where students connect directly with mentors who have already been through it — people from their target universities, their intended major, their country. Where conversations are organized, sessions are bookable, and the guidance is real. Not another Reddit thread. Not another Discord server. A purpose-built space for the college admissions journey.

• Mentor discovery — browse and filter mentors by major, university, country, and hourly rate; a scoring engine ranks results by how well each mentor matches a student's profile
• Session booking — book 30 or 60-minute paid sessions; LinkU takes a 15% platform fee and mentors receive 85%
• Messaging — direct chat between students and mentors with typing indicators and message history
• Video calls — in-app video sessions powered by Agora
• Networking — send and manage connection requests
• Feed — university-specific channels where students and mentors post, comment, upvote, and share
• LinkU AI — admissions intelligence module with essay analysis, university comparison, and outcome predictions; college data is refreshed weekly from CDS, IPEDS, and NCES sources
• Admin panel — account moderation and platform management

• Node.js 20+ (22 recommended)
• Docker (for local PostgreSQL)

# 1. Install dependencies
npm ci

# 2. Start the database
docker compose up -d

# 3. Set up environment variables
cp .env.example .env.local
# Fill in the required values (see Environment variables below)

# 4. Set up the database
npm run prisma:generate
npm run prisma:migrate

# 5. (Optional) Seed university data for LinkU AI
npm run prisma:seed

# 6. Start the dev server
npm run dev

The app runs at http://localhost:3000. For HTTPS (needed for WebRTC/mobile testing):

npm run dev:https

Copy .env.example to .env.local and fill in the values:

# App
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL=http://localhost:3000

# Database
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://linku:linku@localhost:5433/linku

# Clerk (auth)
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=

# Agora (video calls)
AGORA_APP_ID=
AGORA_APP_CERTIFICATE=

# OpenRouter (LinkU AI)
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=
LINKU_AI_CRON_SECRET=

# Stripe (optional — payments)
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=

# AWS S3 (optional — file uploads)
S3_REGION=us-east-1
S3_BUCKET_NAME=
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
S3_PUBLIC_BASE_URL=

See .env.example for the full list including optional tuning variables for the matching algorithm and LinkU AI weights.

npm run dev           # Development server
npm run build         # Production build
npm run start         # Production server
npm run lint          # ESLint
npm run typecheck     # TypeScript check
npm run test          # Run tests
npm run test:watch    # Watch mode
npm run ci            # Full check: generate, lint, typecheck, test
npm run prisma:studio # Open Prisma Studio

app/          # Next.js routes and pages
components/   # UI components
lib/          # Utilities, auth helpers, LinkU AI logic
services/     # Business logic (matching, booking, reviews, feed ranking)
prisma/       # Database schema and migrations

The project is configured for Vercel with a weekly cron job (vercel.json) that refreshes college statistics data for the LinkU AI module.

Before deploying to production:

• Switch Clerk to production keys
• Use a managed PostgreSQL instance (Neon, RDS, etc.)
• Configure S3 bucket with CORS and IAM permissions
• Add Stripe webhook endpoint
• Set all environment variables in your hosting platform