Journal App

I built this app to serve as a centralized hub for journaling and note-taking — somewhere I can easily retrieve historical entries and use AI to summarize or surface deeper insights from my own data.

💡 The Problem

I wanted a reliable, dedicated environment to log my thoughts, track my reading notes, and handle daily journaling. Existing tools lacked the specific flexibility I needed to turn raw text into an organized, easily searchable personal knowledge base. I wanted something entirely personal, contextual, and customizable.

🛠️ What I Built

Journal is a production-ready web app designed for low-friction daily logging.

• Streak tracker. A writing-streak indicator on the dashboard nudges users toward consistent, daily journaling.
• Organization and curation. Pin important entries, mark items as favorites, and catalog thoughts with custom notebooks and tags.
• Fast search. An optimized search lets users scan their historical text and retrieve information instantly.
• Subscription tier. A Stripe-backed paid tier — the free tier retains data for three months, and verified payment unlocks unlimited storage.

💻 Technical Stack

• Frontend: React and TypeScript on Vite, deployed as a static SPA.
• Backend: FastAPI (Python) running in a lightweight container, with JWT-based authentication.
• Database & ORM: PostgreSQL managed via SQLAlchemy, with schemas designed for fast text querying and strict feature isolation.
• Payments: Stripe Checkout for subscriptions; webhooks update the user’s subscription state in the database.

🚀 What’s Interesting

• Streak design. Visual streak indicators on the dashboard meaningfully improved daily interaction. Small UI affordances, big retention impact.
• Interconnected notes. Letting users explicitly link entries turns the app from a chronological diary into a web of connected knowledge — mirroring productivity philosophies like Zettelkasten.
• Data lifecycles. Writing background logic to expire free-tier data after three months, then cleanly extend it the moment a Stripe webhook fires, was a good lesson in state management and async event handling.