Socialflow/replit.md

Social Flow - AI-Powered Social Media Management Platform

Overview

Social Flow is a comprehensive social media automation platform designed to streamline content creation and publication across Facebook and Instagram. It enables users to manage multiple social media pages, generate AI-powered post content, process and optimize media for different platform formats, and schedule posts with automated publishing. The platform aims to automate the entire social media content workflow, from creation to publication, utilizing AI for text generation and intelligent media formatting tailored for platform-specific requirements. Key capabilities include multi-photo carousel posts with drag-and-drop reordering, a preview modal for realistic platform rendering, and an integrated media library.

User Preferences

Preferred communication style: Simple, everyday language.

System Architecture

Frontend Architecture

The frontend is built with React and TypeScript, using Vite for bundling. Wouter handles client-side routing, including protected routes. State management primarily uses TanStack Query (React Query) for server state and caching. UI components are built with Radix UI primitives and shadcn/ui (New York style), styled with Tailwind CSS. The design emphasizes a component-based structure, custom path aliases, responsive design with a mobile-first approach, and real-time data synchronization. Dark mode is the default theme.

Backend Architecture

The backend runs on Node.js with Express.js, fully implemented in TypeScript. It follows a RESTful API design with clear endpoints for authentication, user management, AI content generation, media handling, social page management, and post scheduling. Multer is used for file uploads, integrating with Cloudinary for cloud storage. Node-cron handles background processing for scheduled post publication. Architectural patterns include a service layer (e.g., OpenRouterService, CloudinaryService), storage abstraction, and a middleware-based request processing pipeline. Session management is handled by express-session, using MemoryStore for development and connect-pg-simple with PostgreSQL for production.

Database Architecture

PostgreSQL is the chosen database, utilizing Drizzle ORM for type-safe operations and Neon serverless driver for WebSocket support. The schema includes core tables for users, cloudinary_config, social_pages, media, posts, post_media (for multi-photo carousels with display order), scheduled_posts, and ai_generations. Enumerations define platform, post_type, post_status, and media_type. Relationships are defined with foreign key cascading deletes for data integrity. Drizzle Kit manages schema migrations.

Media Processing Pipeline

The platform leverages Cloudinary for cloud-based image and video storage and transformation. Original files are uploaded to Cloudinary and stored in the database.

Publishing Strategy: All publications to Facebook/Instagram use the original image URL - the platforms handle cropping and formatting automatically based on the post type (feed/story/carousel).

Transformations for Preview Only: Cloudinary generates transformation URLs for UI preview purposes only:

• Facebook Landscape: 1200x630px with intelligent center crop (crop: fill) - landscape format
• Facebook Feed / Instagram Feed: 1080x1080px with intelligent center crop (crop: fill) - square format
• Instagram Story: 1080x1920px with padding (crop: pad) - vertical format

These transformation URLs are stored in the database (facebookLandscapeUrl, facebookFeedUrl, instagramFeedUrl, instagramStoryUrl) and displayed in the media library for visual preview, but are NOT used when publishing to social media platforms.

Authentication & Authorization

Authentication uses Passport.js with local strategy and bcrypt for password hashing. User roles (admin, user) control access, with admin having full access and user limited to publishing features. Session management is via express-session with HTTP-only cookies, sameSite: 'lax', and a 7-day duration, secured by a SESSION_SECRET environment variable. Routes are protected on both the backend (middleware requireAuth, requireAdmin) and frontend (ProtectedRoute component).

UI/UX Decisions

The UI is built with Radix UI and shadcn/ui, leveraging Tailwind CSS for styling. The default theme is dark mode. Key design decisions include a component-based architecture for reusability, custom path aliases, and a responsive, mobile-first approach. The platform supports multi-photo carousel posts with drag-and-drop reordering, and a PreviewModal offers realistic rendering of posts across Facebook and Instagram formats before publishing. The calendar view is responsive, with a grid layout for desktop and an expandable list view for mobile, allowing editing and deletion of scheduled posts directly from the calendar.

External Dependencies

AI Content Generation

• OpenRouter API: Used for AI text generation, specifically with Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet, to create multiple post text variations. Requires OPENROUTER_API_KEY.

Cloud Storage

• Cloudinary: Provides cloud-based image and video storage, automatic transformations for platform-specific formats, and a global CDN. User-configurable via settings.

Social Media APIs

• Facebook Graph API: Fully implemented for publishing posts to Facebook pages, including multi-photo carousel support (up to 10 photos). Uses a 2-step process: (1) Upload photos as unpublished via POST /{page-id}/photos with published=false to get photo IDs, (2) Create feed post via POST /{page-id}/feed with attached_media parameter containing photo IDs in order.
• Instagram Graph API: Partially implemented. Single photo/video posts work. Carousel posts require a 3-step process (not yet implemented): (1) Create individual media containers with is_carousel_item=true, (2) Create carousel container with media_type=CAROUSEL, (3) Publish the carousel container.

Database Service

• Neon Serverless PostgreSQL: The primary database service, utilizing a WebSocket-based connection pooling and the @neondatabase/serverless driver. Connection string via DATABASE_URL.

UI Component Libraries

• Radix UI: Accessible UI primitives.
• React Hook Form: Form state management with validation.
• Zod: Schema validation.
• date-fns: Date manipulation.
• react-dropzone: Drag-and-drop file uploads.
• Lucide React: Icon library.
• @dnd-kit: Drag and drop functionality for photo carousel reordering.