An advanced iOS messaging application with AI-powered conversation intelligence, built with SwiftUI and Firebase.
Latest Release: Phase 12 + LangChain Integration
Date: October 25, 2025
Platform: iOS 17.0+
Backend: Firebase + OpenAI GPT-4o + LangChain
Status: ✅ LangChain Agent Fully Operational
- 💬 Real-time messaging with delivery & read receipts
- 👥 Direct and group conversations with visual enhancements
- 🎨 Colored avatars - Unique colors for each participant
- 👀 Visual read receipts - See who viewed with colored circles
- 📸 Image sharing with Firebase Storage (encrypted)
- 🎤 Voice messages with AI transcription
- 😊 Message reactions with emoji picker
- ✏️ Edit messages within time window
- 🧵 Threaded conversations
- 📞 Voice & video calls with WebRTC
- 🌍 AI-powered message translation
- 🔔 Push notifications (configurable)
- 🤖 AI Chat Assistant - Conversational interface to your messages
- 🔗 LangChain Agent - Intelligent tool orchestration for fluid conversations
- 🔍 Semantic Search - Find messages by meaning, not keywords
- ✅ Action Item Tracking - AI extracts and tracks tasks
- 💡 Decision Logging - Automatic detection of important decisions
⚠️ Priority Detection - AI identifies urgent messages- 📊 Conversation Summaries - Get instant overviews of long chats
- 🧠 RAG Pipeline - Question answering with context
- 🎯 Multi-Step Reasoning - Agent chains tools for complex queries
What's New:
- 🎨 Unique User Colors - 10-color palette, consistent per user
- 👤 Colored Avatar Bubbles - Initials on colored backgrounds
- 🔄 Smart Color Generation - Based on user ID for uniqueness
- 👥 Participant Header - Scrollable row showing all members
- See who's online with green dot indicators
- Current user appears first (labeled "You")
- Tap header to view group info
- 💬 Improved Message Display
- Colored avatar circles next to sender names
- Visual hierarchy with consistent colors
- ✓ Gray Checkmark - Shows when sent, not everyone has read
- 🎯 Colored Viewer Circles - See exactly who read the message
- ✨ Progressive Display - Circles appear as people read
- 🎉 Smart Completion - Checkmark disappears when all have read
- 📊 Overflow Handling - Shows 3 circles + "+X" for more viewers
Visual States:
Sent: 8:09 PM ✓ (gray checkmark)
1 person read: 8:09 PM ✓ 🔵 (checkmark + circle)
2 people read: 8:09 PM ✓ 🔵🔴 (checkmark + 2 circles)
All read: 8:09 PM 🔵🔴🟣 (only circles, checkmark gone!)
- ✅ Fixed reactions deleting messages
- ✅ Fixed image loading/display with encryption
- ✅ Fixed online indicator in chat header
- ✅ Improved group name display (truncation)
What's New:
- Chat naturally with AI about your conversations
- Ask questions like "What did we decide about the project?"
- Get instant summaries: "Summarize my conversation with Sarah"
- Find information: "Find messages about the deadline"
- Track tasks: "What are my action items?"
- Multi-turn conversations with context retention
Access:
- Global Assistant: AI tab (purple sparkles)
- Conversation Assistant: Sparkles button in any chat
Quick Actions:
- 📄 Summarize conversation
- ✅ View action items
- 💡 Review decisions
⚠️ Check priority messages
New Implementation: The AI Assistant now uses LangChain with an OpenAI Functions Agent for more intelligent, fluid conversations.
LangChain is a framework for building applications with Large Language Models. It provides:
- Intelligent Agents: AI that reasons and uses tools automatically
- Better Memory: Improved context management across conversations
- Tool Orchestration: Seamlessly chains multiple tools together
- Chain of Thought: More sophisticated reasoning patterns
- Smarter Queries: Agent automatically decides which tools to use
- Multi-Step Tasks: Can perform complex workflows without manual chaining
- Natural Conversations: Better understanding of user intent and context
- Automatic Tool Selection: No need to explicitly specify actions
❓ "Who was the last person I said hello to?"
→ Agent searches all conversations, finds the greeting, identifies sender
❓ "Translate my last message to Chinese and send it"
→ Agent fetches recent messages, translates, and sends automatically
❓ "Find decisions about the budget and create action items"
→ Agent searches for decisions, extracts actionable tasks, creates items
The agent has access to 8 intelligent tools:
- 🔍
search_messages- Semantic search across conversations - 📄
summarize_conversation- Extract key points and insights - ✅
get_action_items- Retrieve and filter tasks - 💡
get_decisions- Find important decisions ⚠️ get_priority_messages- Identify urgent messages- 🌍
translate_text- AI-powered translation - 📥
get_recent_messages- Fetch recent chat history - 📤
send_message- Send messages on your behalf
- Model: GPT-4o via LangChain
- Temperature: 0.7 (balanced creativity/accuracy)
- Max Iterations: 10 (prevents infinite loops)
- Context Window: Optimized for relevant history
- Automated:
scheduledEmbeddingCleanupruns daily at 2 AM UTC - Manual: Call
cleanupInvalidEmbeddingsfunction to remove invalid embeddings - Health Check:
debugDatabasefunction to inspect system state
- Architecture:
LANGCHAIN_ARCHITECTURE.md- Complete system design - Troubleshooting:
docs/archive/LANGCHAIN_TROUBLESHOOTING.md - Cleanup Guide:
docs/archive/CLEANUP_INSTRUCTIONS.md - Summary:
docs/archive/LANGCHAIN_COMPLETE.md
📐 See ARCHITECTURE.md for complete system architecture with detailed diagrams
Language: Swift 5.9+
UI: SwiftUI
Storage: SwiftData
State: Combine + @Observable
Authentication: Firebase Auth
Real-time: Firebase Firestore listeners
Calls: WebRTC
Security: AES-256-GCM E2E encryption
Functions: Node.js 18 (TypeScript)
Database: Cloud Firestore (NoSQL)
Storage: Firebase Cloud Storage
Auth: Firebase Authentication
AI: OpenAI GPT-4o
Embeddings: text-embedding-3-large (1536 dim)
Agent: OpenAI Functions Agent
LLM: GPT-4o with function calling
Vector Store: Firestore embeddings
Voice-to-Text: Whisper API
Translation: GPT-4o
Semantic Search: Cosine similarity on 1536-dim vectors
Tools: 8 intelligent tools (search, summarize, translate, etc.)
MessagingApp/
├── ios/messagingapp/
│ ├── Services/ # Backend integration
│ │ ├── AuthService.swift
│ │ ├── MessageService.swift
│ │ ├── AIService.swift
│ │ ├── RAGService.swift
│ │ └── ...
│ ├── ViewModels/ # State management
│ │ ├── ChatViewModel.swift
│ │ ├── AIAssistantViewModel.swift
│ │ └── ...
│ ├── Views/ # SwiftUI views
│ │ ├── Conversations/
│ │ ├── Components/ # Reusable UI components
│ │ │ ├── GroupParticipantHeader.swift
│ │ │ ├── ReadReceiptAvatars.swift
│ │ │ ├── UserAvatarView.swift
│ │ │ └── ...
│ │ ├── AI/
│ │ ├── Calls/
│ │ └── ...
│ ├── Utilities/ # Helper utilities
│ │ ├── ColorGenerator.swift
│ │ └── ...
│ └── Models/ # Data models
│ ├── Message.swift
│ ├── ActionItem.swift
│ └── ...
│
├── firebase/
│ ├── functions/src/
│ │ ├── ai/
│ │ │ ├── assistant.ts # AI Chat Assistant
│ │ │ ├── intelligence.ts # Action items, decisions
│ │ │ ├── embeddings.ts # RAG pipeline
│ │ │ └── translation.ts
│ │ └── messaging/
│ │ └── notifications.ts
│ ├── firestore.rules
│ └── storage.rules
│
└── docs/ # Comprehensive documentation
├── PHASE9_COMPLETE.md
├── PHASE9_QUICKSTART.md
└── ...
| Phase | Feature | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Setup & Authentication | ✅ Complete |
| 2 | Friends System | ✅ Complete |
| 3 | Core Messaging | ✅ Complete |
| 4 | Rich Messaging | ✅ Complete |
| 4.5 | Group Chat | ✅ Complete |
| 5 | Voice/Video Calls | ✅ Complete |
| 6 | End-to-End Encryption | ✅ Complete |
| 7 | AI Translation | ✅ Complete |
| 8 | RAG & Intelligence | ✅ Complete |
| 9 | AI Chat Assistant | ✅ Complete |
| 10 | Push Notifications | 📋 Planned |
| 11 | Offline Support | 📋 Planned |
| 12 | Polish & UX | 🚧 In Progress |
# Install dependencies
- Xcode 15+
- Node.js 18+
- Firebase CLI
- CocoaPods or SPM- Clone Repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd MessagingApp- Firebase Setup
cd firebase/functions
npm install
npm run build
# Deploy functions
firebase deploy --only functions- Configure Environment
# Set OpenAI API key
firebase functions:config:set openai.api_key="sk-..."- iOS Setup
cd ios/messagingapp
# Open in Xcode
open messagingapp.xcodeproj- Build & Run
- Select target device/simulator
- Press Cmd+R
- TRANSLATION_FEATURES.md - Auto-translation guide
- Group Chat UX - Visual enhancements (Phase 12)
- Colored avatar system
- Participant header
- Read receipt redesign
- PHASE9_COMPLETE.md - Full Phase 9 documentation
- PHASE9_QUICKSTART.md - 5-minute quick start
- PHASE9_TESTING_GUIDE.md - Test suite
- PHASE9_SUMMARY.md - Overview
- PHASE8_COMPLETE.md - RAG & Intelligence
- PHASE7_COMPLETE.md - Translation
- PHASE6_COMPLETE.md - Encryption
- And more in
/docs/archive
Visual Features:
1. Create/join a group chat (3+ members)
2. Verify participant header shows all members with:
- Colored avatar bubbles (44x44px)
- "You" label for current user
- Green dot for online members
- Horizontal scrolling
3. Send a message
4. Verify gray checkmark appears
5. Wait for 1 person to read
- Verify checkmark + 1 colored circle
6. Wait for more to read
- Verify checkmark + multiple circles
7. Wait for all to read
- Verify checkmark disappears, only circles remain
8. Verify each user has unique color
9. Test message reactions (should not delete messages)
10. Test image sending/loading# See docs/archive/PHASE9_TESTING_GUIDE.md for full suite
# Quick smoke test:
1. Open AI Assistant tab
2. Tap "Action Items" quick action
3. Verify response
4. Open a conversation
5. Tap sparkles icon
6. Tap "Summarize"
7. Verify summary- Unit tests for services
- Integration tests for AI features
- UI tests for critical flows
- Performance tests for response times
- Visual regression tests for new UI
Visual Read Receipts:
Your message: "Meeting at 3pm tomorrow?"
8:09 PM ✓ ← Sent, no one read yet
[Alice reads it]
8:09 PM ✓ 🔵 ← Alice read (blue circle)
[Bob reads it]
8:09 PM ✓ 🔵🔴 ← Alice & Bob read
[Charlie reads it]
8:09 PM 🔵🔴🟣 ← Everyone read! Checkmark gone
Participant Header:
- Scroll horizontally to see all members
- Green dot shows who's online
- Tap any bubble to see details
- Your avatar appears first
Color System:
- Each person gets a unique color
- Same color appears in:
- Participant header
- Message sender badge
- Read receipt circles
- Makes group conversations easy to follow
Get Conversation Summary:
You: "Summarize my conversation with John"
AI: "Based on your conversation with John:
- Discussed Q4 project timeline
- Decided to use React for frontend
- Action items: Create wireframes by Thursday"
Find Information:
You: "Find messages about the database"
AI: "I found 3 relevant messages:
1. Sarah (Oct 20): 'We should use PostgreSQL...'
2. John (Oct 21): 'The schema needs foreign keys...'
3. Mike (Oct 22): 'Don't forget indexes...'"
Track Tasks:
You: "What are my action items?"
AI: "You have 3 pending action items:
1. Send report to Sarah (Due: Oct 25)
2. Review budget proposal (Due: Oct 24)
3. Schedule team meeting (No deadline)"
# OpenAI API Key (required for AI features)
firebase functions:config:set openai.api_key="sk-..."
# Optional: Custom settings
firebase functions:config:set app.name="MessageAI"
firebase functions:config:set app.environment="production"Edit GoogleService-Info.plist with your Firebase project details.
- Simple queries: 1-2 seconds
- Conversation summaries: 2-4 seconds
- Semantic search: 2-3 seconds
- Multi-turn conversation: 1-2 seconds
- ~$1.40/user/month for typical AI usage
- 20 summaries, 10 action item queries, 15 searches, 30 multi-turn exchanges
- Optimizable with caching and rate limiting
- Firebase Authentication required for all operations
- Firestore security rules enforce data access
- Cloud Functions validate authentication
- End-to-end encryption for messages (Phase 6)
- API keys secured in Cloud Functions environment
- Create feature branch
- Implement feature
- Write tests
- Update documentation
- Submit pull request
- Swift: Follow Swift API Design Guidelines
- TypeScript: ESLint with Firebase recommended config
- Comments: Document complex logic
- Tests: Aim for 80%+ coverage
- Streaming responses for AI
- Voice input for AI queries
- Export summaries as PDF
- Custom quick actions
- Proactive AI suggestions
- Meeting summaries
- Smart scheduling
- Team analytics
- Multi-language support
- GPT-4o vision for images
- Advanced conversation insights
- Cross-platform (Android)
[Your License Here]
Developed by [Your Team/Name]
- OpenAI for GPT-4o and Whisper
- Firebase for backend infrastructure
- Swift community for excellent resources
Documentation: See /docs folder
Issues: GitHub Issues
Email: your-email@example.com
- Truly Intelligent - Not just chat, but understanding
- Context-Aware - AI remembers and understands
- Productivity-Focused - Built for getting things done
- Privacy-Conscious - E2E encryption, user control
- Modern Stack - Latest tech, best practices
- Beautiful UX - Visual read receipts & colored identities (Phase 12)
- Group Chat Excellence - Best-in-class group messaging experience
- [Add your achievements here]
- Lines of Code: ~16,000+ Swift, ~3,000+ TypeScript
- Cloud Functions: 15+
- AI Models: GPT-4o, text-embedding-3-large, Whisper
- Features: 45+
- Phases Completed: 9/12 (Phase 12 in progress)
- Color Palette: 10 unique colors for user identity
-
ARCHITECTURE.md - Complete system architecture with detailed diagrams
- Full stack visualization
- All data flows (messaging, AI, calling, encryption)
- Database schema & relationships
- Security architecture
- Performance characteristics
- Technology stack
-
LANGCHAIN_ARCHITECTURE.md - LangChain AI Agent deep dive
- Agent architecture & components
- Tool implementations
- Embedding system
- Semantic search internals
- LANGCHAIN_QUICK_REFERENCE.md - Quick commands & examples
- Example queries
- Troubleshooting tips
- Common commands
- Cost breakdown
- docs/TRANSLATION_FEATURES.md - Translation system guide
- docs/APP_PLAN.md - Complete development roadmap (1500+ lines)
- docs/archive/LANGCHAIN_TROUBLESHOOTING.md - All bugs & solutions
- docs/archive/CLEANUP_INSTRUCTIONS.md - Database cleanup guide
- docs/archive/LANGCHAIN_COMPLETE.md - Implementation summary
See docs/archive/ for phase-by-phase implementation history (Phases 1-12)
Built with ❤️ using Swift, SwiftUI, Firebase, and OpenAI
Last Updated: October 25, 2025
Version: 12.0.0-beta
Status: Phase 12 In Progress - Enhanced Group Chat UX