ANON

Private by default. Speak freely, stay anonymous.

What this is

Most "anonymous message" apps make you copy a link, paste it somewhere, and manually collect replies. ANON skips all of that: people join a shared space (the public feed, or a private invite-only community) and post, comment, vote, and react without anyone — including other members — ever seeing who they are. The server itself never sends another user's name to the app, so there's nothing to reverse-engineer even by inspecting network traffic.

Features

• Anonymous posting — text, images, polls, and 24-hour disappearing posts, with nobody's identity attached
• Communities — invite-only rooms with an auto-generated join code; the creator becomes admin, admins can approve/remove members and moderate messages
• Reactions — emoji reactions on posts (tap the smiley or long-press a post), plus upvote/downvote
• Comments — threaded replies on any post
• Live feed — new posts appear via a real-time banner (Socket.IO), no need to pull-to-refresh
• Search — full backend search across the feed, not just what's currently loaded
• Notifications — in-app and push notifications for comments, votes, community messages, moderation actions, and more
• Account security — email/password auth, forgot-password (emailed reset code), email verification, change password
• Saved posts — bookmark posts locally to find them again later
• Admin dashboard — a separate web panel for moderation, reading from the same database as the app

Tech stack

• App: React Native + Expo (SDK 54), TypeScript, React Navigation, Socket.IO client
• Backend: Node.js + Express, PostgreSQL, Socket.IO, JWT auth
• Builds: EAS Build for installable Android APKs (the app uses native modules — wallet connect, gesture handling — so it won't run in Expo Go; you need a development build or an EAS build)
• Email: Resend (for password reset / verification codes)

Screenshots

Project structure

.
├── App.js                     # App entry point, providers, error boundary
├── src/
│   ├── screens/                # Home, Discover, Post composer, Communities, Profile, Auth
│   ├── contexts/                # Wallet/auth context, Toast context
│   ├── components/              # Shared UI (HeroHeading, Skeleton, Toast, ...)
│   ├── services/                # API client
│   └── utils/                   # Haptics, saved posts, error messages, ...
├── anonymous-app-backend/
│   ├── controllers/              # Route handlers
│   ├── models/                   # Database queries
│   ├── routes/                   # Express routers
│   ├── services/                 # Notifications, push, email, trending
│   └── database/schema.sql       # Full Postgres schema
└── src/admin/AdminDashboard.tsx  # Standalone moderation web panel

Getting started

1. Backend

cd anonymous-app-backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env   # fill in DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, etc.
npm run db:migrate     # applies database/schema.sql
npm run dev            # starts the API on http://localhost:4000

2. App

npm install
cp .env.example .env   # point EXPO_PUBLIC_API_BASE_URL at your backend

Because of native dependencies, run one of:

npx expo run:android        # build + install locally (needs Android Studio/adb)
eas build --platform android --profile preview   # cloud build, produces an installable APK

3. Admin dashboard (optional)

npm run admin:web

Point it at the same backend as the app — moderating a post there updates the live app feed immediately.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For larger changes, open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

License

MIT