wavechat

Minimal, self-hostable real-time chat. WebSocket rooms, presence indicators, typing signals, message history — no Firebase, no vendor lock-in.

Features

• WebSocket rooms — join any named room, messages broadcast in real time
• Presence — see who's online in a room, updates instantly on join/leave
• Typing indicators — live "Alice is typing..." with debounce
• Message reactions — add emoji reactions, toggle on/off
• Persistent history — last 50 messages loaded on room join (MongoDB)
• JWT auth — stateless, works with the Socket.io auth handshake
• Self-hostable — docker-compose up and you're done

Quick Start

cp server/.env.example server/.env
# set JWT_SECRET and MONGODB_URI

# With Docker
docker-compose up

# Or manually
cd server && npm install && npm run dev
cd client && npm install && npm run dev

Socket Events

Event	Direction	Payload
join_room	client → server	{ room: string }
send_message	client → server	{ room, text }
typing_start	client → server	{ room }
typing_stop	client → server	{ room }
add_reaction	client → server	{ messageId, emoji }
new_message	server → client	Message object
message_history	server → client	Message[]
presence	server → client	{ online: string[], room }
typing	server → client	{ users: string[] }
reaction_update	server → client	{ messageId, reactions }

Tech Stack

Node.js · Express · Socket.io · MongoDB (Mongoose) · React · JWT · Docker