DEV Community: Aisha-Aliyu

How I Turned My Struggles Into Code: Building BUDDY, a Mental Health App

Aisha-Aliyu — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:03:52 +0000

There are projects you build to get a grade.
There are projects you build to land a job.
And then… there are projects you build because your soul needed it.

For me, “Buddy” was that project.

⸻

💭 The Story Behind the Code

During my final year, life got really heavy. Between academic pressure, family struggles, and feeling like I was carrying the weight of everything alone… my mental health took a hit. I slipped into a quiet kind of depression — the type that hides behind smiles and “I’m fine” messages.

I didn’t really have anyone I felt safe talking to. But I had code.

One night, while staring blankly at my laptop, I had a simple thought:

“What if I could build something that listens to me when nobody else can?”

That was the spark that became Buddy — a mental health companion web app designed to support, comfort, and encourage users in moments when they feel unheard.

⸻

🧠 What Buddy Does

Buddy isn’t just a chatbot. It’s designed to be a holistic mental wellness companion with features that reflect real emotional needs:
• 📝 VentSpace — a private journal space, inspired by the Notes app, where users can freely express their thoughts without judgment.
• 👥 Emergency Contacts — users can set up to three trusted contacts who get alerted in moments of distress.
• 🌈 Mood Check-in — daily mood logging to help users become more emotionally aware.
• 📈 Mood Tracking Dashboard — beautifully visualized with charts to see emotional trends over time.
• 💬 AI-Powered Chat — a warm, context-aware conversation with “Buddy,” designed to adapt its tone to your mood (e.g., soft when you’re sad, hype when you’re excited).
• 🧘 Mindfulness & Motivation — meditation guides, daily inspirational quotes, and a community section for support.
• 👤 Profile Customization — making the experience feel personal, because mental health support should never feel generic.

⸻

⚡ The Tech Behind Buddy

I built Buddy using a MERN-style structure, with a clean and responsive frontend and a secure backend:
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS — fully responsive for mobile use.
• Backend: Node.js, Express, MongoDB (via Mongoose)
• AI Chat: Integrated through OpenRouter API (hidden securely in .env)
• Hosting: Vercel for frontend, Render for backend
• Version Control: Git + GitHub for collaboration and deployment

Every line of code wasn’t just a technical step — it was therapeutic. It gave me something to hold on to when everything else felt unstable.

⸻

🫶 Why This Project Means Everything to Me

I didn’t build Buddy because I wanted to impress anyone.
I built it because I needed it.

It became the thing I turned to when I couldn’t explain how I felt out loud. It became my late-night friend, my quiet listener, my little act of self-rescue.

And now, sharing it publicly, my hope is that Buddy can also be a light for someone else who’s struggling in silence. Even if it helps one person feel a little less alone, it’ll be worth every sleepless night I spent building it.

⸻

🚀 What I Learned

This project taught me more than any textbook ever could:
• How to ship a full-stack app end-to-end.
• How to secure API keys, set up routes, and structure scalable codebases.
• How to make responsive designs that prioritize user experience.
• How to integrate AI ethically and meaningfully.
• And most importantly: how powerful technology can be when it comes from a place of empathy.

⸻

💼 A Message to Recruiters & Fellow Devs

To any recruiter reading this: this isn’t just a portfolio piece. It’s a part of my story. If you’re looking for a developer who brings heart, resilience, and creativity to her work — that’s me.

To my fellow devs who might be struggling quietly: your feelings are valid. And sometimes, building something for yourself can end up being the most meaningful thing you ever create. Don’t underestimate that.

⸻

🌐 Check It Out

👉 Live App: buddy-app-six.vercel.app
👉 GitHub: github.com/Aisha-Aliyu/buddy-app

⸻

This isn’t the end of Buddy — it’s just the beginning. ✨
I plan to keep improving it, adding new features, and maybe one day turning it into something that can genuinely support thousands of people around the world.

Thank you for reading my story 💛
— Aisha Aliyu

🚀 How I Built a Luxury Restaurant Reservation System with Next.js & Prisma

Aisha-Aliyu — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 23:19:11 +0000

As developers, we learn best by building real projects. I wanted to challenge myself to create something that felt like a production-ready full-stack app — not just another todo list.

That’s how I built Elan Royale, a luxury restaurant reservation system where users can book a table, make a deposit, and receive instant confirmation.

This project not only helped me practice Next.js, Prisma, and full-stack development, but also gave me something powerful to showcase in my portfolio.

⸻

🥂 The Problem I Wanted to Solve

Restaurants often rely on manual reservations (phone calls, paper logs) which can be messy and lead to errors. I wanted to create a modern solution that:
• Lets users easily reserve a table online.
• Collects a deposit using Stripe payments.
• Automatically confirms and stores the booking.

This was the idea behind Elan Royale.

⸻

🛠 Tech Stack

I picked technologies that are used in real production apps:
• Next.js 15 → for server-side rendering and API routes.
• Prisma ORM → to model and interact with the database.
• TailwindCSS → for fast, modern, responsive styling.
• Stripe → for payment gateway integration.
• Vercel → for smooth deployment and hosting.

⸻

⚙️ Building the System

Here’s how I built it step by step:

Setting up Next.js

I started by creating a Next.js app using the App Router. This gave me a strong foundation with server-side rendering and API routes.

Designing the UI

Using TailwindCSS, I designed a clean, modern interface.
• A Hero section to showcase the restaurant’s luxury feel.
• A Reservation Form with fields for name, email, phone, party size, date/time, and notes.

Reserve a Table

Database with Prisma

I defined the reservation schema in Prisma:

model Reservation {
id String @id @default(cuid())
name String
email String
phone String
partySize Int
reservationTime DateTime
area String
notes String?
createdAt DateTime @default(now())
}

This made it easy to create and query reservations in the database.

API Routes

I created an API route (/api/reservations) to handle saving reservations into the database.

export async function POST(req: Request) {
const body = await req.json();
const reservation = await prisma.reservation.create({ data: body });
return NextResponse.json(reservation, { status: 201 });
}

Stripe Payment Integration

Before confirming a reservation, the system redirects users to Stripe Checkout to pay a deposit.
• User fills the form → saved in DB.
• Stripe Checkout opens → user pays.
• On success, they are redirected to /confirmation.

const paymentRes = await fetch("/api/create-checkout-session", { ... });
const data = await paymentRes.json();
window.location.href = data.url;

Confirmation Page

After payment, users land on a Confirmation Page showing reservation details.

🎉 Reservation Confirmed!

Thank you for booking with Elan Royale.

⚡ Challenges I Faced & How I Solved Them
1. Prisma errors → Fixed by handling missing/invalid input properly in API.
2. Hero image loading slowly → Solved by switching to next/image for optimization.
3. useSearchParams error in Next.js 15 → Solved by wrapping in to support client-side params.

🎨 Final Result

✅ Users can make a reservation online.
✅ Payment deposit handled with Stripe.
✅ Confirmation page with booking details.
✅ Fully deployed to Vercel.

🔗 Live Demo: [elan-royale.vercel.app]
🔗 GitHub Repo: github.com/Aisha-Aliyu/elan-royale.git
⸻

💡 Lessons Learned
• Next.js App Router makes full-stack projects much cleaner.
• Prisma is powerful for database modeling and migrations.
• Stripe integration is smooth but requires careful error handling.
• Deployment on Vercel is fast and beginner-friendly.

⸻

✅ Conclusion

This project showed me how to bring together frontend, backend, database, and payments into one seamless full-stack app.

If you’d like to check it out, here’s the live demo and GitHub repo.

I’m also open to collaborations and freelance opportunities in full-stack web development — feel free to connect! 🚀