Building a “Say It Nicer” Laravel API with Telex A2A Integration

Abiodun — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:59:13 +0000

Say It Nicer: Making Messages Polite with Laravel & Telex

#hng13 #Laravel #Telex #PHP #APIDevelopment #Gemini

We’ve all sent messages that sounded a bit… harsh. Maybe it was an email, a Slack message, or just a quick text. What if there was a way to automatically soften the tone without losing the meaning? That’s exactly what I set out to do with SayItNicer.

SayItNicer is a Laravel API that takes your message and gives it a kinder, more professional tone. And the cool part? It integrates with Telex A2A agents, so it can easily plug into chat apps or other systems that support Telex.

How It Works

Receiving Messages
The API is designed to accept messages in JSON-RPC format, which is how Telex agents talk to each other. The messages can have multiple parts, but SayItNicer looks for text.
Checking the Text
Before doing anything, it checks if there’s actually text to work with. If the request doesn’t contain text, it sends back an error. This ensures the API only processes valid messages.
Polishing the Message
The heart of the API is a service that rewrites the message. It detects harsh or blunt wording and returns a softer version. For example, “This is too harsh!” might become “Here’s a kinder way to phrase that: …”.
Responding in Telex Format
Once rewritten, the API sends the message back in JSON-RPC format, so it can be used seamlessly by other agents or applications. Metadata like message IDs and roles are included, keeping everything structured.
Agent Card
SayItNicer also provides an agent card—basically a profile that describes what it can do. Other Telex agents can use this card to understand its capabilities, input/output types, and examples. It makes discovery and integration effortless.

Why I Built It

Improve Communication: Sometimes tone matters more than content.
Easy to Integrate: Works with Telex A2A standards out-of-the-box.
Extensible: You could add more NLP features, like sentiment detection or emoji handling.
Learning Opportunity: It’s a small project but touches on API design, service interfaces, and agent-based systems.

This project was part of my #hng-intern13 journey, and it’s a neat little tool for anyone who wants to make messaging kinder without doing the hard thinking manually.

Imagine a world where your code can gently nudge your messages to be polite. That’s the vision behind Say-It-Nicer.

From Boredom to Building: My First Task at HNG13

Abiodun — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 23:17:44 +0000

After being laid off, I was honestly just... bored.
I needed something to reignite my brain and keep me learning, so I decided to join the HNG.tech Internship 13. It’s known for its fast-paced learning environment — the kind that keeps you coding, debugging, and smiling at 2 a.m.

# The Task

The very first task was simple on the surface:

> Build an API endpoint using any (or favourite) stack that returns a JSON response.

But this wasn’t just about returning "Hello World".
The goal was to **show structure, clarity, and logic — the kind of detail that proves you can write maintainable code.

# The Flow

Here’s how I approached it — more like a layout of how everything connects:

Auto-create the database The app first checks if a database exists.

If not, it creates one automatically.
This means after environment and dependencies setup no other tweaking is needed.

Run Migrations if Missing Once the database is ready, it checks for tables.

If migrations haven’t been run, it triggers them automatically.
Think of it as Laravel saying, “Relax, I got this.”

Seed Initial User Data After migrations, it seeds one user records.

This only happens, if the tables are newly created.
This enable user data to be fetched from either the database (if it already exists) or a hardcoded array inside the service.

Service-Based Structure Instead of mixing logic in the controller, everything was handled by a Service class that communicates through an Interface.

This keeps the controller clean and focused on HTTP flow.
The service handles all the database logic, data preparation, and checks.

API Response Design I used a base ApiResponse class that structures every response.

No hardcoded keys like meta or data.
Just clean, human-readable JSON output.

Rate Limiting for Safety To avoid abuse, I added Laravel’s built-in throttle middleware directly to the route.

By default, it allows 60 requests per minute.
You can always tweak this later based on your needs.

# The Result

A simple endpoint — /api/me — that returns user info, but beneath it lies a thoughtful system that:

Creates what’s missing,
Seeds what’s needed,
Responds cleanly,
And protects itself automatically.

# My Reflection

It might sound like a small API task, but the process reminded me of why I love backend engineering — it’s like solving tiny puzzles that make systems feel alive.

From being laid off to joining HNG13, this task became my way to stretch my brain again.
I’m now even more motivated to keep going deeper with each new challenge.

# Tech Stack

Laravel 12+
PHP 8+
MySQL
RESTful API principles

# What I Learnt

This task reminded me why I love creating solutions. I learnt more about how to structure a simple feature properly — from automating database setup and seeding to integrating an external API smoothly. It showed me how clean organization between controllers, services, and responses makes everything flow better. Most importantly, it reignited my excitement for coding after the layoff — turning a small task into something that feels alive and purposeful.

*# Link *
GitHub: the api repository
Live Endpoint: Live Api

DEV Community: Abiodun

Building a “Say It Nicer” Laravel API with Telex A2A Integration

Say It Nicer: Making Messages Polite with Laravel & Telex

How It Works

Why I Built It

From Boredom to Building: My First Task at HNG13