hidebuddy (Web)

hidebuddy is a web-first visual workspace for collaborative whiteboarding and AI-assisted brainstorming.

This project is going to be open source, and community contributions are welcome.

License: AGPL-3.0-only

Why hidebuddy

• Real-time collaborative whiteboard experience
• AI-assisted brainstorming on the canvas
• Local-first behavior with optional cloud-style web storage
• Modern React + Vite stack with test coverage

Quick Start

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (recommended: latest LTS)
• npm

Install and run

npm install
npm run dev

Build and preview

npm run build
npm run preview

Available Scripts

• npm run dev - start local dev server
• npm run build - build production bundle
• npm run preview - preview production build
• npm run lint - run ESLint
• npm run format - check formatting
• npm run format:write - auto-format files
• npm run test - run unit tests once
• npm run test:watch - run tests in watch mode
• npm run test:unit - run unit tests (interactive)
• npm run test:e2e - run Playwright end-to-end tests
• npm run test:all - run unit + e2e tests

Storage Configuration (AWS Optional)

Web save/load can use S3 if environment variables are provided:

• VITE_AWS_REGION
• VITE_AWS_S3_BUCKET or VITE_AWS_BUCKET
• VITE_AWS_S3_PREFIX (optional, default: hidebuddy)

Credential options:

• VITE_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID + VITE_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY (+ optional VITE_AWS_SESSION_TOKEN)
• VITE_AWS_IDENTITY_POOL_ID for Cognito Identity Pool

If AWS is not configured or unavailable, the app falls back to browser localStorage.

Testing

npm run test
npm run test:e2e

Contributing

Contributions are welcome as this project moves further into open source.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines.