BODY/DOUBLE

BODY/DOUBLE is an accountability-partner web app inspired by Omegle. Sign up, set your focus preferences, get paired with another person in real time, and work together through a Pomodoro-style session — then take a short break and choose to stay matched or find someone new.

Live demo: https://body-double.onrender.com

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Features

• Account auth — Email/password signup and login with Passport and secure sessions
• Focus preferences — Choose work type (studying, coding, writing, editing) and camera on/off before matching
• Real-time matching — Socket.io queue pairs users into a shared room
• Video or text sessions — Camera-on users join a WebRTC video room with chat; camera-off users get a text-only focus room
• Pomodoro flow — 25-minute focus timer, then a 5-minute break room with options to stay together or rematch
• Responsive UI — EJS views with shared layout partials and custom CSS

Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	EJS, CSS3, Vanilla JavaScript
Backend	Node.js, Express
Database	MongoDB (Mongoose)
Auth	Passport Local, express-session, bcrypt, connect-mongo
Realtime	Socket.io
Video	WebRTC (signaling over Socket.io)
Hosting	Render

How it works

1. Visit the landing page and create an account (or log in)
2. Set your preferences on /filters
3. Join the match queue on /match
4. When paired, you’re sent to /videoChat/:roomId or /textChat/:roomId
5. After the focus timer, continue to /break and choose stay or find new

Project structure

body-double/
├── server.js              # Express + Socket.io entry point
├── config/                # Database, Passport, and local .env
├── routes/                # Express route definitions
├── controllers/           # Request handlers
├── models/                # Mongoose models (User, Filters, Post)
├── middleware/            # Auth, Multer, Cloudinary
├── views/                 # EJS templates and partials
└── public/                # Static CSS and images

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• A MongoDB Atlas cluster (or local MongoDB)
• (Optional) Cloudinary credentials if you use image upload routes

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/NaimaBogran/body-double.git
cd body-double

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Configure environment variables

Create config/.env (this is the path the app loads):

PORT=3000
DB_STRING=mongodb+srv://<user>:<password>@<cluster>.mongodb.net/?appName=<app>
SESSION_SECRET=a_long_random_string

# Optional — used by legacy post/upload routes
CLOUD_NAME=
API_KEY=
API_SECRET=

# Optional — production only
NODE_ENV=development

Notes

• Prefer a MongoDB Atlas region close to you (for example, AWS us-east-1) so local and hosted connections are reliable
• In Atlas Network Access, allow your IP for local development, and 0.0.0.0/0 if you deploy to Render (dynamic IPs)
• Never commit config/.env

4. Run the app

npm start

This runs nodemon server.js. Open http://localhost:3000.

You should see MongoDB Connected: ... in the terminal when the database connection succeeds.

Deploying on Render

1. Push your code to GitHub (do not commit secrets)
2. Create a Web Service on Render pointed at this repo
3. Suggested settings:
   • Build command: npm install
   • Start command: node server.js
4. Add the same environment variables from config/.env in the Render Environment tab (DB_STRING, SESSION_SECRET, etc.)
5. Set NODE_ENV=production
6. Ensure Atlas Network Access allows Render to connect (typically 0.0.0.0/0 on free tiers)

A Procfile is included with web: node server.js for production-style starts.

Main routes

Method	Path	Description
GET	/	Landing page
GET/POST	/signup	Create an account
GET/POST	/login	Sign in
GET	/logout	End session
GET/POST	/filters	Work type + camera preferences
GET	/match	Match queue
GET	/videoChat/:roomId	Video focus session
GET	/textChat/:roomId	Text focus session
GET	/break	Break timer + rematch choices
GET	/about	About the creator
GET	/pomodoroPage	Pomodoro technique overview

License

MIT