ECAST Academy

AI-Powered Learning Platform - Learn smarter with personalized courses and capsules

Getting Started • Features • Tech Stack • Documentation

📖 Overview

ECAST Academy is a modern, AI-powered learning platform that transforms YouTube videos and custom content into interactive courses with quizzes, notes, and certifications. Built with Next.js 15, Convex, and advanced AI capabilities, it provides a seamless learning experience with features like:

🎬 YouTube Integration - Import and transform YouTube videos into structured courses
🧠 AI-Powered Content - Auto-generate quizzes, notes, and learning capsules using Gemini on Google Vertex AI
🏆 Certifications - Earn certificates upon course completion
📊 Progress Tracking - Detailed analytics and progress visualization

✨ Features

🎓 Course Management

Admin Portal: Create and organize courses with chapters and content items
Support for multiple content types: videos, text, quizzes, assignments, and resources
Drag-and-drop course builder for admins
Course publishing and draft management
User Experience: Browse, enroll, and complete courses to earn certifications

📺 YouTube Learning

Admin-curated courses from YouTube videos
Automatic transcript extraction and processing
AI-generated notes and summaries
Interactive video player with chapter markers
Users can browse and enroll in available courses

💊 Learning Capsules

Bite-sized learning modules
AI-generated content from various sources
Multiple quiz types: MCQ, Fill-in-the-Blanks, Drag-and-Drop
Spaced repetition for better retention

📝 Interactive Quizzes

Multiple question types with detailed feedback
Timed assessments
Retry capabilities with score tracking
Graded and ungraded quiz options

🏅 Certification System

Course completion certificates
Grading and passing criteria
Unique certificate IDs for verification
Downloadable certificate generation

🔐 Authentication & Security

Clerk authentication integration
Role-based access control (User/Admin)
Secure API routes with rate limiting
CSRF protection

🎨 User Experience

Dark/Light theme toggle
Smooth animations with Framer Motion
Accessible UI components (Radix UI)
Sound effects for interactions

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

Framework: Next.js 15 with App Router
Language: TypeScript 5
Styling: Tailwind CSS 4
UI Components: Radix UI + shadcn/ui
Animations: Framer Motion
Forms: React Hook Form + Zod
Rich Text Editor: TipTap
Charts: Recharts

Backend

Database & Backend: Convex
Authentication: Clerk
AI Integration:
- Google Vertex AI (Gemini)
- Vercel AI SDK

Infrastructure

Rate Limiting: Upstash Redis

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installation

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Avinash1286/ecastacademy.git
cd ecastacademy

Install dependencies
```
npm install
```
Set up environment variables

Copy the example environment file:
```
cp .env.local.example .env.local
```
Fill in your environment variables (see Environment Variables section)
Set up Convex
```
npx convex dev
```
This will prompt you to log in and create a new project if needed.
Run the development server
```
npm run dev
```
This runs both Next.js and Convex in development mode.
Open your browser

Navigate to http://localhost:3000

Environment Variables

Create a .env.local file with the following variables:

# Clerk Authentication (Required)
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=pk_test_...
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_IN_URL=/sign-in
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_UP_URL=/sign-up
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_AFTER_SIGN_IN_URL=/dashboard
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_AFTER_SIGN_UP_URL=/dashboard

# Convex (Required)
CONVEX_DEPLOYMENT=dev:your-deployment
NEXT_PUBLIC_CONVEX_URL=https://your-deployment.convex.cloud

# NOTE: AI env vars are NOT set here. All AI work runs on Convex —
# configure GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY / AI_MODEL_ID on the Convex
# deployment (see "Convex Environment Variables" below).

# YouTube API (Required for video import)
YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_youtube_api_key

# Rate Limiting - Upstash Redis (Required in production)
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL=https://your-instance.upstash.io
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN=your_upstash_token

# App URL
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL=http://localhost:3000

Convex Environment Variables

All AI runs on Convex, so the AI configuration lives here. Set these directly in Convex:

# Certificate signing
npx convex env set CERTIFICATE_SIGNING_SECRET "your-secure-secret"

# Vertex AI service account (full JSON key, raw or base64-encoded)
npx convex env set GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY '{"type":"service_account","project_id":"...","client_email":"...","private_key":"..."}'

# GCP project/location (project falls back to project_id in the key; location defaults to us-central1)
npx convex env set GOOGLE_VERTEX_PROJECT "my-gcp-project"
npx convex env set GOOGLE_VERTEX_LOCATION "us-central1"

# The single Gemini model used for ALL AI features (defaults to gemini-2.5-flash)
npx convex env set AI_MODEL_ID "gemini-2.5-flash"

📁 Project Structure

ecastacademy/
├── convex/                 # Convex backend
│   ├── schema.ts          # Database schema
│   ├── courses.ts         # Course operations
│   ├── chapters.ts        # Chapter operations
│   ├── videos.ts          # Video processing
│   ├── certificates.ts    # Certificate generation
│   ├── progress.ts        # Progress tracking
│   ├── ai.ts              # AI operations
│   └── utils/             # Backend utilities
├── shared/                # Shared code (frontend & backend)
│   ├── ai/               # AI utilities and prompts
│   ├── quiz/             # Quiz types and utilities
│   └── visualization/    # Chart templates
├── src/
│   ├── app/              # Next.js App Router pages
│   │   ├── admin/        # Admin dashboard
│   │   ├── dashboard/    # User dashboard
│   │   ├── learnspace/   # Learning interface
│   │   ├── capsule/      # Capsule learning
│   │   └── api/          # API routes
│   ├── components/       # React components
│   │   ├── ui/           # Base UI components
│   │   ├── course/       # Course components
│   │   ├── quiz/         # Quiz components
│   │   └── landing/      # Landing page components
│   ├── hooks/            # Custom React hooks
│   ├── lib/              # Utilities and services
│   └── context/          # React context providers
└── public/               # Static assets
    └── images/           # Static images

📜 Available Scripts

# Development (runs Next.js + Convex)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Start production server
npm start

# Run linting
npm run lint

# Convex development server only
npm run convex:dev

🔧 Configuration

Clerk Setup

Create a Clerk application at dashboard.clerk.com
Enable the authentication methods you want (Email, Google, etc.)
Copy your API keys to .env.local

Convex Setup

Run npx convex dev to initialize your Convex project
The schema will be automatically deployed
Set any required environment variables using npx convex env set

AI Provider Setup (Google Vertex AI on Convex)

All AI features run as Convex actions/background jobs on Google Vertex AI (Gemini), authenticated with a service account. One model — AI_MODEL_ID — is used for every AI feature.

Create (or pick) a project in Google Cloud Console and enable the Vertex AI API
Create a service account with the Vertex AI User role (roles/aiplatform.user)
Create a JSON key for the service account
Set the Convex environment variables shown above (GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY, GOOGLE_VERTEX_PROJECT, GOOGLE_VERTEX_LOCATION, AI_MODEL_ID)

No AI environment variables are needed in .env.local — the Next.js app never calls the AI provider directly.

YouTube API Setup

Create a project in Google Cloud Console
Enable the YouTube Data API v3
Create an API key and add it as YOUTUBE_API_KEY

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This is open source project.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Next.js - The React Framework
Convex - Backend platform
Clerk - Authentication
Tailwind CSS - Styling
Radix UI - Accessible components
shadcn/ui - UI component library

Made with ❤️ by ECAST Team at Thapathali Campus

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
convex		convex
public		public
shared		shared
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
.npmrc		.npmrc
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CLAUDE.md		CLAUDE.md
README.md		README.md
components.json		components.json
convex_keys.env.example		convex_keys.env.example
eslint.config.mjs		eslint.config.mjs
instrumentation.ts		instrumentation.ts
next.config.ts		next.config.ts
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
pnpm-workspace.yaml		pnpm-workspace.yaml
postcss.config.mjs		postcss.config.mjs
restart-convex.bat		restart-convex.bat
skills-lock.json		skills-lock.json
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json

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ECAST Academy

📖 Overview

✨ Features

🎓 Course Management

📺 YouTube Learning

💊 Learning Capsules

📝 Interactive Quizzes

🏅 Certification System

🔐 Authentication & Security

🎨 User Experience

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

Backend

Infrastructure

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installation

Environment Variables

Convex Environment Variables

📁 Project Structure

📜 Available Scripts

🔧 Configuration

Clerk Setup

Convex Setup

AI Provider Setup (Google Vertex AI on Convex)

YouTube API Setup

🤝 Contributing

📄 License

🙏 Acknowledgments

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ECAST Academy

📖 Overview

✨ Features

🎓 Course Management

📺 YouTube Learning

💊 Learning Capsules

📝 Interactive Quizzes

🏅 Certification System

🔐 Authentication & Security

🎨 User Experience

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

Backend

Infrastructure

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installation

Environment Variables

Convex Environment Variables

📁 Project Structure

📜 Available Scripts

🔧 Configuration

Clerk Setup

Convex Setup

AI Provider Setup (Google Vertex AI on Convex)

YouTube API Setup

🤝 Contributing

📄 License

🙏 Acknowledgments

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