SciTechHub

SciTechHub is an iOS SwiftUI app for reading science and technology news, saving content, tracking activity, connecting with other users through social discovery, and sending lightweight direct messages.

Current Status

Implemented so far:

• Firebase authentication (sign up, sign in, sign out)
• News feed for Science and Technology categories
• Home, Trending, Saved, Friends, and My Notes tabs
• Inbox tab for lightweight direct messages
• Article interactions: love and bookmark
• Reading history tracking
• Notes per user
• Profile editing (name, interests, profile image)
• Social discovery with recommendations and mutual connections
• Friend requests (top-level and mirrored per-user collections)
• Privacy/message permission model in Firestore rules
• On-demand AI article summary in article detail view
• Reddit-style async direct messaging (chat list + conversation view)
• Share article to friend from article detail as a direct message

Tech Stack

• SwiftUI
• MVVM architecture
• Firebase iOS SDK (Auth, Firestore, Storage)
• NewsAPI for article data
• OpenAI Chat Completions API for article summarization

Project Structure

• SciTechHub/SciTechHubApp.swift: App entry, Firebase initialization, global environment objects
• SciTechHub/MainTabView.swift: Main tab navigation and Friends hub UI
• SciTechHub/HomeView.swift: Home feed and recommendation logic
• SciTechHub/TrendingView.swift: Trending content view
• SciTechHub/NewsView.swift: News list and article detail UI
• SciTechHub/NewsViewModel.swift: News fetch logic
• SciTechHub/ArticleSummaryViewModel.swift: AI summary service + state management
• SciTechHub/DirectMessagingView.swift: Inbox UI, conversation UI, friend picker, ChatViewModel, MessageViewModel
• SciTechHub/BookmarkManager.swift: Bookmark/love persistence + listeners
• SciTechHub/ProfileView.swift: Profile, settings, and friend requests UI
• SciTechHub/ProfileViewModel.swift: Profile, privacy, social graph, and activity logic
• SciTechHub/NotesView.swift: User notes flow
• firestore.rules: Firestore security rules

Requirements

• macOS with Xcode installed
• iOS Simulator or iOS device
• Firebase project configured

Recommended:

• Xcode 15+
• iOS 15+ target runtime

Setup

1. Open the project:

   • Open SciTechHub.xcodeproj in Xcode.

2. Configure Firebase:

   • Add GoogleService-Info.plist to the app target.
   • Ensure Firebase is enabled for Authentication, Firestore, and Storage.

3. Configure API keys:

   • NewsAPI key is currently hardcoded in:
     • SciTechHub/HomeView.swift
     • SciTechHub/NewsViewModel.swift
   • OpenAI key is read in this order:
     • OPENAI_API_KEY in app Info.plist
     • OPENAI_API_KEY inside GoogleService-Info.plist
     • OPENAI_API_KEY from process environment

4. Deploy Firestore rules:

   • Use the firestore.rules file in the repo.
   • Deploy from Firebase Console or Firebase CLI using an account with permission to test/deploy Firestore rules.
   • Deploy after every messaging rule change (/chats + /chats/{chatId}/messages now required).

Run the App

1. Select the SciTechHub scheme.
2. Choose an iOS Simulator (or connected device).
3. Build and run from Xcode.

Firestore Notes

Important collections used by current implementation:

• users/{userId}
• users/{userId}/notes/{noteId}
• users/{userId}/bookmarks/{bookmarkId}
• users/{userId}/likedArticles/{articleId}
• users/{userId}/readArticles/{articleId}
• users/{userId}/friends/{friendId}
• users/{userId}/friendRequests/{peerId}
• friendRequests/{requestId}
• friends/{userId} (legacy compatibility)
• chats/{chatId}
• chats/{chatId}/messages/{messageId}

Chat document shape:

• participants: [userId1, userId2]
• participantNames: { userId: displayName }
• participantPhotoURLs: { userId: photoURL }
• lastMessage: String
• lastTimestamp: Timestamp

Message document shape:

• senderId: String
• receiverId: String
• text: String
• timestamp: Timestamp

Troubleshooting

"Missing or insufficient permissions" in Friends flow

If this appears while adding friends:

• Confirm latest firestore.rules is actually deployed to your Firebase project.
• Ensure top-level friendRequests read rule supports missing-document precheck reads (the rule containing resource == null).
• Ensure the Firebase account used for deployment has permission to test/deploy Firestore rules.

AI summary not generating

• Verify OPENAI_API_KEY is set in one of the supported locations.
• Confirm network access and valid OpenAI billing/quota.

Inbox shows permission errors

• Confirm latest firestore.rules is deployed.
• Ensure /chats/{chatId} and /chats/{chatId}/messages/{messageId} rules exist in the deployed version.
• Ensure users are actually friends if target user privacy is set to messagePermission = friends.

Tests

Current test targets exist but are mostly starter templates:

• SciTechHubTests
• SciTechHubUITests

Production Hardening Suggestions

Before production release:

• Move API keys out of source files and tracked plist files.
• Add focused unit tests for view models and friend request flows.
• Add Firestore emulator rule tests.
• Add centralized logging for network and Firestore permission errors.