Ilgiz SatkynovSoftware engineerBay Area, CA

Homie

A mobile study companion with an AI tutor, lessons, streaks and a focus timer.

Status
In development. Runs from source with Expo; not published in the App Store or Google Play.
Type
Software project
Built with
  • Expo
  • React Native
  • TypeScript
  • Expo Router
  • Redux Toolkit
  • Firebase
View source
Three Homie screens side by side: onboarding with the purple mascot, the Lessons list, and a 25-minute Pomodoro timer.
Onboarding, Lessons and the focus timer, captured from a local web build of the app.
Homie sign-in screen with Continue with Google and email and password fields.
Sign-in with Google or email.

What it does

Homie puts a chat tutor next to the other things students use while studying, and ties them together with a streak, XP and hearts.

  • AI chat and a voice mode.
  • Lessons in maths, coding and science.
  • A Pomodoro timer, a weekly planner, study games and a homework photo scanner.
  • Accounts with Google or email.

My contribution

Every commit in the app repository is mine.

Challenges and decisions

Several features ask a language model for structured JSON. Responses sometimes came wrapped in code fences, with extra sentences, or with a separate “thought” part, which broke parsing, and a slow response could leave a screen waiting.

The client now drops thought parts, strips fences, tries a direct parse and then falls back to extracting the first JSON block, with a 45-second timeout on every request. It’s forgiving rather than strict, so a malformed answer degrades to each feature’s own fallback instead of an error.

Current limitations

  • Not released to an app store.
  • Not every AI feature goes through the server-side proxy yet.
  • No automated tests.
  • These screenshots come from a web build and are limited to screens available without signing in.

Possible next steps

  • Route every model call through the serverless function.
  • Add tests for the XP, streak and hearts rules.
  • Ship a TestFlight build for feedback.