🧠 DevCards

A flashcard-based learning platform for software engineers.

DevCards helps software engineers learn and review technical concepts through short, focused flashcards.

The goal is simple: learn one concept at a time, build strong fundamentals, and keep expanding your engineering knowledge.

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✨ What is DevCards?

DevCards organizes software engineering knowledge into categories → skills → flashcards.

📚 Categories

Group related areas of software engineering.

🛠️ Skills

Represent specific technologies, concepts, or topics.

🃏 Flashcards

Contain focused questions, concise answers, and detailed explanations.

🤖 AI-generated Content

Gemini is used to help generate new flashcard content while avoiding duplicate questions.

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🗂️ Topics

DevCards aims to cover software engineering broadly, including:

💻 Computer Science 🧑‍💻 Programming Languages ⚙️ Backend 🎨 Frontend 🗄️ Database 🏗️ System Design ☁️ Cloud 🖥️ Infrastructure 🔐 Security 📊 Data Engineering 🧠 AI & Machine Learning 🧪 Testing 🏛️ Software Architecture 🛠️ Developer Tools

🚀 Getting Started

📋 Prerequisites

Make sure you have:

• 🐍 Python 3.12+
• 🟢 Node.js
• 🐘 PostgreSQL

For AI content generation:

• ✨ Gemini API key

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⚙️ Backend Setup

Go to the backend directory:

cd service

Create the environment file:

🪟 Windows / PowerShell

cp .env.example .env

Then update .env with your local configuration and credentials.

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📦 Install Dependencies

Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv

Activate it.

🪟 PowerShell

.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

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🗄️ Database Setup

Run Django migrations:

python manage.py migrate

Create a superuser if needed:

python manage.py createsuperuser

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▶️ Run Backend

python manage.py runserver

The backend will run on:

http://localhost:8000

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🎨 Frontend Setup

Go to the frontend directory:

cd web

Install dependencies:

npm install

Start the development server:

npm run dev

The frontend will run on:

http://localhost:3000

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🧑‍💻 VS Code

The project already includes VS Code configuration for development.

You can use the included:

• 📁 Workspace configuration
• 🐛 launch.json
• ▶️ VS Code debugger

Open the workspace and use Run and Debug to start the configured development environment.

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🤖 AI Content Generation

DevCards uses Gemini to generate flashcard content.

The generator is designed to:

1. 🎯 Select a skill
2. 🔎 Retrieve existing questions
3. 🤖 Ask Gemini to generate new content
4. 🚫 Avoid duplicate questions
5. 📝 Generate concise answers
6. 📖 Generate detailed explanations
7. 💾 Save the generated content to PostgreSQL

The AI model can be configured through the environment:

GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-2.5-flash

This allows the model to be changed without modifying application code.

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🃏 Flashcard Content

Each flashcard is designed with two levels of explanation:

💬 Answer

A short and concise explanation designed to fit inside the flashcard.

📖 Learn More

A longer explanation that can cover:

• 🔍 What it is
• ⚙️ How it works
• 💡 Why it exists
• 📌 When to use it
• ⚖️ Advantages and disadvantages
• 🔄 Alternatives
• 🏗️ Practical considerations
• 💻 Examples

Markdown can be used in the learn_more content.

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🎯 Goal

DevCards is built around a simple idea:

Software engineering is too broad to learn all at once.

Instead of trying to consume large amounts of documentation or tutorials, DevCards focuses on small, repeatable learning sessions.

🧠 Learn a concept. 🃏 Review it later. 🔁 Repeat. 📈 Build deeper engineering knowledge over time.