GroupGPT Build Journal
A running log of what shipped, what changed, and why. Every feature, fix, and architectural decision — documented as it happened.
From Google OAuth and private rooms to published chats, room bots, reply threads, and a one-tap install — every feature, fix, and decision, logged as it happened.
We tried to make a coding assistant run on a 512MB budget on an old Intel MacBook, fully offline. The model alone can't build a project — but wrap it in a loop that decomposes, verifies, and learns, and it builds working software overnight. The lesson: smarter loops beat bigger models.
Read post →GroupGPT's database started failing with “disk image is malformed” — but the file wasn't actually broken. The real culprit was two SQLite connections fighting over one file with conflicting journal modes. Here's how we found it and fixed it.
Read post →Google sign-in now works inside the installed app via a full-page redirect flow — no more uninstall-and-reinstall dance — the Android splash screen turns white to match the logo, and the auth card gets roomier spacing.
Read post →The mobile chat header clears the notch and fits its controls on one row, the A/V device pickers get a comfortable custom dropdown, and the copy/share/marker/reply action buttons stop wrapping to a second line.
Read post →@username mentions now render as highlighted chips, and when a message directly mentions another human member, Cortez sees it for context but stays out — only a mention matching a real member silences him.
Read post →Every human message now carries its sender's avatar; tap your own to edit your account, tap another member's to see their profile card. The mobile chats pane gains a profile-and-account header, and you can change your avatar from your user card.
Read post →The Chat / Thought / Ghost mode button returns to the main header, styled to match its neighbors, while per-room logos and the room Appearance editor are retired — and the remaining Room Settings controls get a contrast bump.
Read post →The plan picker gets uniform card heights so every call-to-action lines up, a full-width Gift button that matches the rest, and a fix for the chat flicker that happened every time the modal opened or closed.
Read post →The disappearing profile-link bug is fixed across all four backend layers, and the 2026 plans roll out — higher token ceilings on Pro, Premium and Enterprise, with refreshed prices and descriptions that match Stripe exactly.
Read post →Mobile navigation moves from a bottom tab bar to edge-swipe panes — Rooms, Neurons, Files, A/V around a centered chat — and the video call gains a draggable picture-in-picture that docks to the A/V pane or pops back out to chat.
Read post →A hot-path performance pass — parallelized retrieval, cached query embeddings, a token-budgeted conversation window — cuts time-to-first-token and cost, while two fixes stop whole-server crashes and tolerate many users behind one IP.
Read post →Chat survives past the old 6-hour and 30-day token horizons by keeping the session fresh, the free-tier monthly allowance resets when the billing window rolls over, and the “user joined” toast is de-duplicated.
Read post →The admin dashboard adopts GroupGPT's monochrome grayscale brand and gains an “Export emails” button that downloads the full user list as a CSV — the practical primitive behind every email campaign.
Read post →The learn! command joins the command palette so teaching Cortez is discoverable, and the room knowledge graph now renders concept edges correctly between stacked nodes with improved source quality.
Read post →Apps generated by scaffold! can be previewed from the Files pane with a device-viewport toggle, a true full-screen mode, and per-file preview — plus code blocks that wrap instead of forcing a horizontal scroll.
Read post →A self-running ideation loop discovers the highest-severity problem, weighs three retrieval-grounded options and ships the best, while the scaffold engine is split into focused, tested modules that now report real token usage.
Read post →Cortez's memory gets a real retrieval engine: local embedding-based semantic search over a room's neurons and history surfaces only what's relevant, and a curated FAQ answers common product questions for zero tokens.
Read post →An opt-in marker mode copies just the fragment you highlight via a floating pill, the right-click menu gives way to footer edit/delete actions, modals finally center and match the theme, and a full-bleed app icon makes the installed app look native.
Read post →The rule! command sets persistent room behavior via a new rule neuron type, replies quote a specific message and feed that context to the AI, Markdown files become attachable, and a PWA install button puts GroupGPT on your home screen.
Rooms gain their own configurable bots, files can be dropped into chat with their text auto-extracted for the AI to read, messages render richer, an edit command fixes replies in place, and a service worker lays the groundwork for installability.
Read post →Publish a chat to a shareable public page with unpublish support, browse and subscribe to published chats, and earn a verified badge when they gain traction — plus a calculator tool for Cortez and accurate, de-duplicated view counts.
Read post →GroupGPT launches an affiliate program with a dashboard and admin tooling, adds a selective clear menu that separates messages, history, and neurons, and hardens the account-settings endpoint against mass assignment.
Read post →The code! scaffold sandbox migrates from E2B to the Daytona SDK with a major build-reliability pass, voice users can pick their microphone, and GroupGPT publishes discoverability files so AI crawlers understand the product.
Live peer-to-peer voice chat inside any room, smoother voice memos, and real-time per-user translation that now follows you into every chat mode — plus a cleaner mode picker and a thought-mode pipeline fix.
Read post →The custom JWT/Passport system moves to Firebase Authentication, disposable emails are blocked at signup, admin routes get rate limiting, and invite links become multi-use with user-controlled expiry.
Read post →WebLLM no longer re-downloads the 1–2 GB model on every page load thanks to origin-private file system cache detection, and room logos move from data URLs to properly stored database paths.
Read post →GroupGPT ships full AI inference in the browser using WebLLM and WebGPU/WASM — an AI group chat that works with no server, no API key, and no internet connection. Plus a critical fix for mobile IP ban false positives.
Read post →image! Command & Prompt HistoryNeurons become portable with a .neurons JSON bundle format for sharing AI context packs, the image! command generates inline images, and a Prompt History tab lets users review and edit logged AI interactions.
Read post →Scaffold file metadata is now persisted to the database so code previews survive page reloads, and the code! command gets a 32K token cap for much longer code generation in private rooms.
Read post →The second major architectural expansion: 2,400+ lines of new frontend code introduces WebRTC voice chat, voice memo transcription, the NeuronPanel AI context editor, code scaffold generation, and Tavily web search.
Read post →Every teal accent is replaced with GroupGPT's brand purple, admins gain a right-click message correction UI for training signal, and mobile layout gets dvh viewport fixes for iOS Safari.
Read post →Users can now go invisible with Ghost Mode, the AI thought-mode pipeline is fixed to correctly thread message types, and chat history can be re-imported into rooms to prime the AI with prior conversation context.
Read post →Cortez gets its own RSA-OAEP keypair so the AI can actually read encrypted messages, ciphertext is excluded from AI history, and E2EE history survives page refreshes via corrected load ordering.
Read post →GroupGPT switches to Gemini 2.5 Flash with 32K token context, ships per-room AES-GCM end-to-end encryption using the Web Crypto API, and launches an admin dashboard for user management.
Read post →Users get unique @usernames enforced at the DB level, rooms get shareable slugged URLs like /r/username/room-name, and room owners gain email whitelist controls — turning GroupGPT rooms into addressable places on the internet.
Read post →The newly-built RoomSidebar receives its first round of UX fixes — portal rendering corrections, responsive modal sizing with min() CSS expressions, and stale activeRoomId state cleanup for fast room switching.
Read post →The biggest commit of the month — 2,188 lines of new backend code introduces persistent private rooms with DB backing, a complete invite token system, real-time per-user translator mode, and full room member management.
Read post →A concentrated branding pass replaces placeholder UI with GroupGPT's real visual identity — new wordmark logo, full favicon suite for all platform sizes, and League Spartan typography applied to the auth page.
Read post →GroupGPT drops email/password login and switches to Google OAuth as the sole sign-in method via Passport.js, adds a protected admin subscription upgrade endpoint, and cleans up SQLite database hygiene.
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