Ask File

Ask File is a secure, AI-powered document management and chat application built with Next.js and TypeScript. Upload your files, store them safely in AWS S3, and interact with your documents through a conversational interface powered by OpenAI embeddings and Pinecone vector search.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Tech Stack
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
  • Environment Variables
  • Database Setup
• Usage
• Project Structure
• Available Scripts
• Contributing
• License

Features

• User authentication and session management
• Secure file uploads to AWS S3
• Relational data persisted in PostgreSQL via Drizzle ORM
• AI-driven document embeddings with OpenAI
• Vector search and chat using Pinecone
• Responsive UI built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, and Framer Motion

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js 15 (App Router)
• Language: TypeScript
• Styling: Tailwind CSS
• State Management: Zustand
• Authentication: better-auth
• ORM: Drizzle ORM
• Database: PostgreSQL
• File Storage: AWS S3
• AI & Embeddings: OpenAI API
• Vector DB: Pinecone
• Utilities: Zod, clsx

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (>=20)
• pnpm (or npm/yarn)
• PostgreSQL database
• AWS S3 bucket
• OpenAI API key
• Pinecone account

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-org/ask-file.git
cd ask-file

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

(Note: you can also use npm install or yarn install.)

Environment Variables

Create a .env.local file in the project root and configure the following variables:

# Database
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://<USER>:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>:<PORT>/<DB_NAME>

# AWS S3
S3_BUCKET_NAME=your-s3-bucket-name
MY_AWS_REGION=us-east-1
MY_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key-id
MY_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret-access-key

# OpenAI
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-openai-api-key

# Pinecone
PINECONE_API_KEY=your-pinecone-api-key
PINECONE_HOST=your-project.svc.<region>.pinecone.io

Next.js will automatically load variables from .env.local.

Database Setup

Generate and apply database migrations:

pnpm run db:migrate

This will create the necessary tables in your PostgreSQL database.

Usage

Start the development server:

pnpm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Project Structure

├── src/
│   ├── app/           # Next.js App Router pages & layouts
│   ├── components/    # Reusable React components
│   ├── db/            # Drizzle schemas, migrations & Pinecone utils
│   └── util/          # Services (AWS, OpenAI) & helpers
├── drizzle.config.ts  # Drizzle-ORM configuration
├── next.config.ts     # Next.js configuration
├── tailwind.config.ts # Tailwind CSS configuration
└── README.md          # Project overview

Available Scripts

• pnpm run dev — Start development server
• pnpm run build — Build for production
• pnpm run start — Start production server
• pnpm run lint — Run ESLint
• pnpm run format — Format code with Prettier
• pnpm run db:migrate — Generate & apply Drizzle migrations

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open issues or pull requests to improve the project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.