Hush

This is a simple chat app that lets you create anonymous, private chat rooms. You can create a new room, share the link, and anyone can join with just a username. The app features group text chat and group voice chat.

A key feature of this project is privacy: messages are not saved in any database. The server just relays messages and voice. When the last person leaves, the chat is gone forever.

Screenshots

Features

• Create Rooms: Instantly create a new, private chat room.
• Join Rooms: Join any room if you have the shareable room code.
• Usernames: Set a custom username before you join a room.
• Group Text Chat: Real-time, in-browser group chat.
• Live User Count: See how many people are currently in the room with you.
• Group Voice Chat: Join a live voice call with everyone in the room using WebRTC.

Tech Stack

This project is built in two parts:

Frontend (Client-side)

• React (using Vite)
• TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS for styling
• Socket.IO Client to handle the real-time connection
• React Router for pages

Backend (Server-side)

• Node.js
• Express for the API
• TypeScript
• Socket.IO for real-time communication
• MongoDB (only used to generate and store the initial room IDs)

What I Learned

• Custom WebRTC Hook: All the complex logic for group voice chat is built into a single, custom React hook (useWebRTC).The hook manages all the RTCPeerConnection objects, state for audio streams, and all the signaling logic (offers, answers, etc.).
• Mesh Network: The group voice chat is a "mesh," meaning every user creates a direct peer-to-peer connection with every other user in the room. The server is only used for "signaling" (to help them find each other).