Technical Overview

Sejong Pulse is organized as a web-first product with a Next.js application on the frontend, a FastAPI service layer on the backend, Supabase for identity and relational storage, and several optional integrations for search, messaging, media, recommendations, and AI.

Architecture

        flowchart LR
  user["Student user"] --> fe["Next.js frontend"]

  fe --> api["FastAPI API"]
  fe --> supa["Supabase Auth and Postgres"]
  fe --> sendbird["Sendbird chat SDK"]
  fe --> cloudinary["Cloudinary uploads"]
  fe --> algolia["Algolia search"]

  api --> supa
  api --> redis["Redis cache and queue"]
  api --> gorse["Gorse recommendations"]
  api --> livekit["LiveKit sessions"]
  api --> openrouter["OpenRouter-compatible AI endpoint"]
  api --> sendgrid["SendGrid email"]
  api --> toss["Billing provider"]

  worker["Background worker"] --> redis
  worker --> supa

  reco["Recommendation worker"] --> gorse
  reco --> supa

  knowledge["Knowledge pipeline"] --> index["Knowledge index"]
  api --> index

Frontend

The frontend lives in stitch/frontend and uses:

  • Next.js App Router

  • React 19

  • TypeScript

  • shared UI components in src/components

  • API and SDK helpers in src/lib

Important route groups:

  • Auth flows under src/app/(auth)

  • Main product surfaces under src/app/(app)

  • shared application shell in stitch/frontend/src/components/AppShell.tsx

Backend

The backend lives in stitch/backend and centers on:

  • main.py for the primary FastAPI application and the majority of HTTP routes

  • controllers/ for billing and chat-focused routers

  • services/ for external integrations and reusable domain logic

  • worker.py for asynchronous job handling

  • recommendation_worker.py for recommendation outbox processing

The service layer includes modules for:

  • search and indexing

  • billing and plan control

  • chat and advisor behavior

  • recommendation ranking and outbox delivery

  • official channel syncing

  • upload signing and media support

  • observability and abuse protection

Data and State

Core platform state is handled through:

  • Supabase Auth for user identity and sessions

  • Supabase Postgres for profiles, pulses, comments, notifications, matches, channels, billing records, and feedback

  • Redis for caching and durable job processing

  • Gorse for recommendation scoring and synchronization

  • a local knowledge index for academic lookup

Deployment Topology

Current deployment artifacts in the repository point to:

  • Netlify for the frontend via stitch/frontend/netlify.toml

  • Render for the backend API, workers, and cron jobs via stitch/render.yaml

  • Docker Compose for local LiveKit and Gorse infrastructure

Non-Runtime Assets

The stitch/ directory also includes stitched prototypes and diagram documents such as:

  • stitch/read.md

  • stitch/PROJECT_DIAGRAM.md

These are valuable references for product documentation even though they are not shipped as part of the runtime application.