Chatovo

Real-time voice rooms for web, desktop & Android.
One Next.js client · Tauri native shells · LiveKit media · Self-hostable

Open Chatovo  ·  Report a bug  ·  Request a feature

What is Chatovo?

Chatovo is a Discord-inspired voice messenger built around rooms — not endless channel lists. Spin up a room, share the link, start talking. Public, private, or password-protected.

Rooms first Each room is its own space. No noisy server hierarchies — just the people you invited.

One UI everywhere The same experience in the browser, on Windows/macOS/Linux, and on Android.

Yours to host Docker Compose, Caddy, LiveKit SFU, PostgreSQL — run it on your own VPS.

Features

Voice & video — low-latency WebRTC via LiveKit SFU Room chat — messages, markdown, file attachments Private rooms — optional password on join Auth — email + password (better-auth)

Desktop app — tray, global shortcuts, PTT, screen share, auto-update Android — Tauri 2 APK (manual install) i18n — English & Russian (next-intl) Open API — NestJS + OpenAPI / Swagger UI

Platforms

Architecture

flowchart LR
  subgraph clients["Clients"]
    WEB["Web · Next.js"]
    DESK["Desktop · Tauri"]
    AND["Android · Tauri"]
  end

  subgraph backend["Backend"]
    API["NestJS API · Bun"]
    DB[("PostgreSQL")]
    LK["LiveKit SFU"]
  end

  WEB --> API
  DESK --> API
  AND --> API
  API --> DB
  clients --> LK
  API --> LK

Loading

Frontend follows Feature-Sliced Design — the pages/ layer is named views/ to avoid clashing with the Next.js router.

Tech stack

Layer	Stack
Client	React 19 · SCSS modules · Base UI · Motion · TanStack Query · React Hook Form · Zod
Native	Tauri 2 · Rust · deep-link · updater · global-shortcut
Server	NestJS on Bun · Prisma · better-auth · React Email
Shared	@chatovo/schemas — Zod types for client & server
Tooling	ESLint · Prettier · Stylelint · TypeScript · React Compiler · Bun workspaces

Project structure

chatovo/
├── apps/
│   ├── client/       Next.js · FSD (app / views / widgets / features / entities / shared)
│   ├── server/       NestJS API · Prisma · modules/
│   └── tauri/        Rust shell · desktop + Android
├── packages/schemas/ Shared Zod schemas
├── infra/            Caddy · LiveKit configs
├── docs/             Architecture & style guides
├── docker-compose.yml
└── docker-compose.dev.yml

Quick start

1 · Prerequisites

Tool	Required for
Bun ≥ 1.1	Everything
Docker + Compose	Local LiveKit / Postgres
Rust + SDKs	Tauri builds only → docs

2 · Clone & install

git clone https://github.com/zilero232/chatovo.git
cd chatovo
bun install

3 · Environment

One .env at the repo root serves both the client and the server; the client reads its NEXT_PUBLIC_* out of it via loadRootEnv() in next.config.ts.

cp .env.example .env

Variable	Purpose
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET	Auth signing
DATABASE_URL / DIRECT_URL	Postgres (DIRECT_URL is required for Prisma)
LIVEKIT_*	SFU credentials (server)
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL	Client → API
NEXT_PUBLIC_LIVEKIT_URL	Client → media
CORS_ORIGINS	Allowed web origins

4 · Database

bun --filter @chatovo/server db:push

5 · Run

All-in-one (recommended)

bun dev:full

Opens LiveKit + Caddy in Docker, then client (:3000) and server (:4000).
Browse https://chatovo.localhost — accept the local certificate once.

Split terminals

bun dev:livekit    # terminal 1
bun dev            # terminal 2

Native apps

bun tauri:dev                 # desktop dev
bun tauri:build               # desktop release
bun android:init        # first-time Android setup
bun android:dev         # Android on device / emulator
bun android:build       # APK + AAB
bun tauri:icon                # icons from apps/client/app/icon.svg

Version lives in root package.json and must be bumped in every workspace manifest, apps/tauri/tauri.conf.json and apps/tauri/Cargo.toml to match — the release workflow refuses to build when they disagree with each other or with the pushed tag.

Quality checks

bun verify         # typecheck + lint + format:check + lint:css — run before committing
bun fix            # lint:fix + format + lint:css:fix
bun lint:rust      # clippy on apps/tauri

Deployment

Both run in GitHub Actions; there are no local release scripts.

Workflow	Trigger	Result
deploy.yml	Actions → deploy → Run workflow	Builds the web + server images, pushes to GHCR, restarts the VPS stack
release.yml	Push a v* tag	Windows, macOS (arm64 + x64), Linux and Android bundles → GitHub Release

Cutting a release — bump the version in every manifest (root, the three apps, packages/schemas, apps/tauri/tauri.conf.json, apps/tauri/Cargo.toml), then:

git tag v1.2.8 && git push --tags

The checks job refuses to build if any of them disagree with the tag.

Deploying by hand on the VPS instead:

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Roadmap

	Item
✅	Voice & video rooms
✅	In-room text chat
✅	Web · desktop · Android
✅	Tray · shortcuts · PTT · screen share · auto-update
⬜	iOS client
⬜	Google Play listing

Contributing

Bug reports and PRs are welcome — the licence allows forking for exactly that. For larger changes, open an issue first.

bun run fix        # eslint --fix + prettier + stylelint --fix
bun run verify     # typecheck + lint + format + stylelint — must pass
bun run test       # vitest across all workspaces

Commit messages follow Conventional Commits and are checked by commitlint on commit. Tests live in _tests/ next to the code they cover; conventions are in .claude/rules/testing.md.

License

Source-available — all rights reserved. The source is published so you can read it and contribute to it: forking to open a pull request is welcome. Redistributing it, publishing a fork as its own project, or reusing it in another product needs written permission. See LICENSE.

_{Built by Alexandr Artemev}