PedsHub

AI-powered pediatric learning platform. Upload PDF study materials, automatically extract or generate MCQ questions with AI, study with an AI tutor, and track your progress. Installable as a PWA.

Features

• PDF → Quiz: Upload PREP PDFs, AI extracts questions, answers, and explanations
• Generative Mode: AI reads plain text/textbook chapters and creates MCQ questions from scratch
• Quiz Modes: Study (instant feedback with AI tutor) and Exam (timed, scored)
• AI Tutor (TeachChat): Ask follow-up questions mid-study — AI knows the current question, correct answer, and related content. Renders markdown tables, code, and follow-up suggestion chips.
• Tag Classification: AI classifies questions with subjects, diseases, and keywords — filter your question bank by any combination of tags
• Multi-Category Filtering: Filter questions by question category, tags, or quiz source — combine multiple filters for precise study sets
• Text-to-Speech: LiteLLM-routed local TTS, OpenAI TTS, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud — voice selection per quiz
• Semantic Search: pgvector embeddings — finds questions by meaning, not just keywords
• Question Bank: All questions searchable, filterable by category and tags, with inline study mode
• Image Validation: AI has_figure gating — only links extracted images to questions the AI flagged as having a figure, preventing mismatched images
• Performance Tracking: Per-quiz attempt history with line charts, score trends, delete individual attempts
• PDF Processing Progress: Step-by-step progress reporting for PDF uploads and quiz extraction — see each stage in real time
• Concurrent Quiz Protection: Redis session locks prevent the same quiz from being resumed on multiple devices simultaneously
• Landing Page: Integrated with the app — Sign In / Register open as modal overlays, shared Navbar
• PWA: Installable on mobile/desktop (no caching — avoids stale JS issues)
• Bot Protection: Cloudflare Turnstile on registration and contact forms
• Email Verification: Required before first login; password reset via email
• Role System: Admin / Moderator / User with optional rate-limit exemption (unthrottle)
• Admin User Management: Delete users, change roles, toggle unthrottle — all from the admin dashboard
• Nextcloud Integration: Browse and import PDFs from your Nextcloud
• Themes: Default (blue) and Warm/Literary (brown, serif fonts)
• Multi-worker: 4 uvicorn workers with Redis singleton lock for scheduler

Stack

Layer	Tech
Frontend	React 18 + React Router 6, plain CSS, Nginx, PWA (network-only service worker)
Backend	FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL 16 + pgvector
AI/LLM	LiteLLM proxy (Claude, Gemini, GPT, Bedrock, and more)
Embeddings	Configurable — any LiteLLM proxy model or direct AWS Bedrock (1024-dim)
Document vectors	ChromaDB
TTS	LiteLLM-routed local TTS, OpenAI (direct), ElevenLabs, Google Cloud TTS
Queue	Celery + Redis (4 fork workers)
Email	SMTP (smtp2go or any SMTP server)
Bot protection	Cloudflare Turnstile (runtime-configurable, no rebuild needed)

For detailed architecture documentation, see docs/architecture.md.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/ifedan-ed/pdf-quiz-generator.git
cd pdf-quiz-generator

# Configure environment
cp backend/.env.example backend/.env   # edit with your keys

docker compose up -d

Frontend available at http://localhost:8081. The first registered user becomes admin automatically.

Environment Variables

Backend (backend/.env)

# Database
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://pedquiz:<password>@postgres:5432/pedquiz
SECRET_KEY=<random-32-char-string>

# Redis
REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379/0

# LLM — for question extraction (requires LiteLLM proxy or direct OpenAI)
LITELLM_MODEL=openai/claude-haiku-4.5      # prefix with openai/ when using proxy
LITELLM_API_KEY=<your-litellm-or-openai-key>
LITELLM_API_BASE=https://your-litellm-proxy.com   # leave empty for direct OpenAI

# Embedding model — use the model name exactly as your proxy lists it (no prefix needed)
# Can also be changed live via Admin → More settings without redeploying
LITELLM_EMBEDDING_MODEL=gemini-embedding-001

# OpenAI (for TTS — calls api.openai.com directly, not the proxy)
OPENAI_API_KEY=<openai-api-key>

# AWS (for Polly TTS + optional direct Bedrock embedding fallback)
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<key>
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<secret>
AWS_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_BEDROCK_REGION=us-east-1

# ElevenLabs TTS (optional)
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=<key>

# Google Cloud TTS (optional)
GOOGLE_TTS_API_KEY=<key>

# Email
MAIL_SERVER=mail.smtp2go.com
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=<smtp2go-username>
MAIL_PASSWORD=<smtp2go-password>
MAIL_FROM=noreply@yourdomain.com
MAIL_STARTTLS=true

# Bot protection — Cloudflare Turnstile (backend secret)
TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY=<cloudflare-turnstile-secret-key>

# Contact form admin notifications
ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@yourdomain.com

# App
APP_URL=https://your-domain.com
UPLOAD_DIR=/app/uploads
MAX_UPLOAD_SIZE=524288000
CHROMA_PERSIST_DIR=/app/chroma_data

# Optional bootstrap admin. Leave blank to let the first registered user become admin.
DEFAULT_ADMIN_EMAIL=
DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD=

Frontend (frontend/.env)

# Bot protection — Cloudflare Turnstile (public site key)
TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY=<cloudflare-turnstile-site-key>

The frontend env file is not baked into the Docker image at build time. Instead, docker-entrypoint.sh generates a /config.js file from the env vars when the container starts. This means:

• Change keys by editing frontend/.env and restarting the container (no rebuild)
• Switch captcha providers by updating the entrypoint script and the widget component
• Remove bot protection by clearing the key (empty = disabled)

Cloudflare Turnstile (Bot Protection)

How it works

Turnstile protects the registration and contact forms from bot submissions. It does NOT require Cloudflare DNS/proxy — it works standalone on any domain.

Flow:

1. Page loads → Turnstile JS loads from challenges.cloudflare.com
2. Widget renders (invisible or interactive depending on risk score)
3. User completes challenge → widget calls onVerify(token)
4. Frontend stores token in state → Sign Up button becomes enabled
5. User submits form → token sent as `turnstile_token` in POST body
6. Backend receives token → POSTs to Cloudflare's siteverify API:
     POST https://challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/siteverify
     Body: { secret: TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY, response: turnstile_token }
7. Cloudflare returns { success: true/false }
8. If false → 400 "Bot verification failed"
9. If true → registration proceeds normally

Where Turnstile is active:

• Register form (modal overlay on landing page)
• Register form (standalone /register page)
• Contact form (landing page)

Where it is NOT active (by design):

• Login — protected by IP-based rate limiting (10 attempts / 15 min) instead

Setup

1. Go to https://dash.cloudflare.com → Turnstile → Add widget
2. Add your domain(s), choose "Managed" widget type
3. Copy the Site Key and Secret Key

# frontend/.env
TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY=0x4AAAAAAA...

# backend/.env
TURNSTILE_SECRET_KEY=0x4AAAAAAA...

# Restart (no rebuild needed)
docker compose restart frontend backend

Testing

Cloudflare provides test keys for development:

Purpose	Site Key	Secret Key
Always passes	1x00000000000000000000AA	1x0000000000000000000000000000000AA
Always blocks	2x00000000000000000000AB	2x0000000000000000000000000000000AB

Disabling

Set both keys to empty strings (or remove them), restart. The widget won't render and the backend skips verification.

Runtime Config Architecture

docker-compose.yml
  └─ frontend service: env_file: ./frontend/.env

Container startup (docker-entrypoint.sh):
  └─ Reads $TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY from environment
  └─ Writes /usr/share/nginx/html/config.js:
       window.__APP_CONFIG__ = { TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY: "0x4AAA..." };

Browser loads index.html:
  └─ <script src="/config.js"> → sets window.__APP_CONFIG__
  └─ <script type="module" src="/src/main.jsx"> → React app starts
  └─ Components read: window.__APP_CONFIG__?.TURNSTILE_SITE_KEY

This avoids Vite's import.meta.env.VITE_* which bakes values into the JS bundle at build time.

Extraction Modes

Mode	Use Case	How It Works
Standard	PREP PDFs with inline answers	Finds "Correct Answer: X" / "Preferred Response: X" after each question
Two-Step	PREP 2013-style (separate answer key)	Phase 1: extract questions, Phase 2: extract answer key, Phase 3: match
Questions Only	No answers available	Extracts Q + options, sets answer to "PENDING" for manual fill
AI + Regex	Non-standard answer formats	AI analyses format, generates regex, applies it for fast extraction
AI Decides	Unknown format	AI samples start + end of document, picks the best strategy
Generate	Textbook chapters, study notes	AI reads the text and creates MCQ questions (correct answer from text, distractors from AI knowledge)

The extraction model is selected per-job from the dropdown on the document detail page. Models are configured in Admin → AI Models with task extraction.

Tag Classification

PedsHub can automatically classify questions with structured tags using AI. Tags are organized into three types:

Tag Type	Examples	Purpose
Subject	Cardiology, Infectious Disease, Neonatology	Medical specialty / rotation
Disease	Kawasaki Disease, Pneumonia, Type 1 Diabetes	Specific condition mentioned
Keyword	fever workup, antibiotic resistance, fluid management	Clinical concept / topic

How it works:

1. Admin triggers classification from the admin dashboard (or via the /api/admin/classify endpoint)
2. A Celery background task (classify_questions) finds all untagged questions
3. Questions are sent to the AI in batches of 10 — the AI returns subjects, diseases, and keywords for each
4. Tags are stored in question_tags with case-insensitive deduplication and linked via question_tag_links
5. Users can filter the question bank by any combination of tags in the Question Bank page

The classification model is configured in Admin → AI Models with task keyword.

AI Tutor (TeachChat)

The study-mode AI tutor opens as a slide-in drawer. It:

• Knows the current question, correct answer, and explanation
• Pulls related questions from the question bank via semantic similarity (pgvector)
• Supports model selection (dropdown when multiple teach models configured)
• Renders full markdown including GFM tables (via remark-gfm + rehype-raw)
• Generates follow-up suggestion chips after each response
• Uses litellm.acompletion() (async) so it doesn't block other requests

Models for teach are configured in Admin → AI Models with task teach.

Rate Limiting

Endpoint	Limit	Scope
Login	10 attempts / 15 min	Per IP (Redis)
TeachChat	30 calls / 10 min	Per user (Redis)
TTS	20 calls / 5 min	Per user (Redis)

Admins, moderators, and users marked as "unthrottled" are exempt. Rate limiting degrades gracefully if Redis is unavailable (allows requests through).

PWA (Progressive Web App)

The app is installable on mobile and desktop. The service worker is network-only (no caching) — it exists solely to satisfy the PWA installability requirement. This avoids stale cached JS causing blank screens or module-not-found errors after deployments.

Files: frontend/public/manifest.json, frontend/public/sw.js, frontend/public/icon.svg

Rebuild & Restart

Frontend and backend are built into Docker images — code changes require a build before they take effect. Environment variable changes only need a restart.

# Rebuild and restart everything
docker compose build && docker compose up -d

# Rebuild a single service
docker compose build backend && docker compose up -d backend
docker compose build frontend && docker compose up -d frontend

# Restart without rebuilding (for .env changes, including Turnstile keys)
docker compose restart frontend backend

# View logs
docker compose logs backend --tail=50
docker compose logs celery --tail=50

Admin Dashboard

Accessible at /admin for admin users. Three tabs:

AI Models

• Search models from your LiteLLM proxy — click any result to pre-fill the add form
• Configure models per task: extraction (PDF → questions), teach (AI tutor), keyword (tag classification), tts (voices)
• Same model can be added to multiple tasks (e.g. bedrock-claude-haiku-4.5 for both extraction and teach)
• Set a default model per task; enable/disable individual models
• Extraction models from the proxy don't need an openai/ prefix — the backend adds it automatically

Users

• Create users directly (email auto-verified)
• Change user roles: admin / moderator / user
• Unthrottle users (exempt from rate limits)
• Delete users — removes the user and all associated data (documents, quizzes, attempts)

More Settings

• Public Registration — enable/disable new user sign-ups
• Classify Questions — trigger AI tag classification for all untagged questions (runs as background task)
• Embedding Model — set the model used for semantic search vectors:
  • Type a model name and click Save, or click Search LiteLLM to browse proxy models
  • Click Test to verify the model works and returns the correct dimensions (must be 1024)
  • Setting is stored in Redis and takes effect immediately — no restart needed

CLI Management

# ── User management ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
docker compose exec backend python manage.py reset-password admin@example.com NewPassword123
docker compose exec backend python manage.py list-users

# ── Quiz extraction ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
docker compose exec backend python manage.py list-sections
docker compose exec backend python manage.py extract 6 --bg
docker compose exec backend python manage.py extract 6 --bg --title "PREP 2012 Full" --mode timed

# ── Embeddings ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
docker compose exec backend python manage.py reembed

Architecture

Browser
  │
  ▼
Caddy/Nginx (HTTPS termination)
  │
  ▼
Nginx (frontend container — serves React SPA + proxies /api to backend)
  ├─► React SPA (static files + runtime config.js)
  └─► FastAPI backend (4 uvicorn workers)
        ├─ PostgreSQL 16 + pgvector   ← users, quizzes, questions + 1024-dim embeddings
        ├─ ChromaDB                   ← document page chunks for RAG context
        ├─ Redis                      ← Celery queue, rate limits, settings, quiz progress, singleton lock
        ├─ Celery workers (x4)        ← background PDF processing, quiz extraction, tag classification, emails
        ├─ LiteLLM proxy              ← Claude/Gemini/GPT for extraction + teach + classification; embedding models
        ├─ AWS Bedrock                ← Polly TTS; embedding fallback
        ├─ OpenAI                     ← TTS (direct, not via proxy)
        └─ Cloudflare Turnstile       ← bot verification for registration + contact

For deep architecture documentation (database schema, request flow, background tasks, vector search, auth, and more), see docs/architecture.md.

Multi-Worker Setup

The backend runs 4 uvicorn workers. Two coordination mechanisms prevent worker races at startup:

• Postgres advisory lock (pg_advisory_lock(8472931)) serializes startup DDL (Base.metadata.create_all() + setup_pgvector()). Only one worker runs the schema operations; the others wait, then see the idempotent IF NOT EXISTS statements as no-ops. This eliminates the deadlock that used to kill one worker on boot when concurrent ALTER TABLEs acquired locks in different orders.
• Redis SETNX lock (startup:singleton_lock, TTL 300s) ensures only one worker starts the APScheduler and backfill thread.

Stale idle in transaction DB connections are killed at startup to prevent DDL migration hangs.

Database Migrations (Alembic)

Schema changes go through Alembic (backend/alembic/). See docs/migrations.md for the developer workflow (create → review → apply → rollback).

Alembic reads DATABASE_URL from the container env; there is no hardcoded URL in alembic.ini. The live DB tracks its version in alembic_version. Base.metadata.create_all() remains as a fallback for fresh deploys and must not be removed without first generating a baseline migration.

Landing Page

The landing page at /home uses the shared Navbar component. When not logged in:

• Navbar shows Sign In / Register buttons
• Clicking either opens a modal overlay (no page navigation) with tabbed Sign In / Register forms
• Hero CTA buttons also open the modal
• Standalone /login and /register pages still exist for direct links, email verification redirects, and bookmarks

Security

• SQL injection: pgvector queries use parameterized bind variables (CAST(:vec AS vector))
• API key exposure: LiteLLM/TTS model search uses POST body, not URL query params
• Rate limiting: Redis INCR + TTL keys on login, teach, and TTS endpoints
• Bot protection: Cloudflare Turnstile on registration and contact forms
• CSP headers: Configured in nginx.conf for fonts, Turnstile, and self

Project Structure

├── backend/
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── main.py            # App startup, DB migrations, Redis singleton lock
│   │   ├── config.py          # Settings (pydantic-settings, reads .env)
│   │   ├── models/            # SQLAlchemy ORM models
│   │   ├── routers/
│   │   │   ├── auth.py        # Login, register (with Turnstile), verify email, password reset
│   │   │   ├── quizzes.py     # Quiz CRUD, async extraction jobs
│   │   │   ├── attempts.py    # Quiz attempts, progress save/resume, history, stats
│   │   │   ├── teach.py       # AI tutor chat (async, with follow-up suggestions)
│   │   │   ├── admin.py       # Model management, user roles, settings, classification trigger
│   │   │   ├── tags.py        # Tag listing and filtering endpoints
│   │   │   ├── contact.py     # Contact form (with Turnstile)
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   ├── services/
│   │   │   ├── ai_service.py            # LLM calls + _proxy_model() routing
│   │   │   ├── extraction_modes.py      # 6 extraction strategies (standard → generate)
│   │   │   ├── embedding_service.py     # pgvector embeddings (httpx → proxy)
│   │   │   ├── vector_service.py        # ChromaDB document page chunks
│   │   │   └── email_service.py         # Email templates + sending
│   │   ├── tasks/
│   │   │   ├── quiz_tasks.py            # Celery: quiz extraction, tag classification, re-embed
│   │   │   └── pdf_tasks.py             # Celery: PDF text extraction + vectorization
│   │   └── utils/
│   │       └── auth.py                  # JWT, password hashing, rate limiting
│   ├── manage.py              # CLI: reset-password, list-users, reembed, extract
│   └── Dockerfile
├── frontend/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── pages/
│   │   │   ├── LandingPage.jsx          # Landing + contact form + auth modal + Turnstile
│   │   │   ├── DashboardPage.jsx        # Stats, performance chart, attempt history with delete
│   │   │   ├── QuizzesPage.jsx          # Quiz grid, search, past attempts with delete
│   │   │   ├── QuizPage.jsx             # Quiz taking (study/exam), TTS, progress save
│   │   │   ├── ResultsPage.jsx          # Score card, answer review, delete attempt
│   │   │   ├── DocumentDetailPage.jsx   # Sections, extraction mode picker, model selector
│   │   │   ├── RegisterPage.jsx         # Standalone register (with Turnstile)
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   │   ├── Navbar.jsx               # Shared navbar (auth-aware, optional modal callbacks)
│   │   │   ├── TeachChat.jsx            # AI tutor drawer (markdown, tables, suggestions)
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   └── context/                     # AuthContext, ThemeContext
│   ├── public/
│   │   ├── manifest.json                # PWA manifest
│   │   ├── sw.js                        # Service worker (network-only, no cache)
│   │   ├── icon.svg                     # App icon
│   │   └── config.js                    # Dev fallback (overwritten by entrypoint in prod)
│   ├── nginx.conf                       # API proxy + CSP headers
│   ├── docker-entrypoint.sh             # Generates /config.js from env vars at runtime
│   └── Dockerfile
├── docs/
│   └── architecture.md                  # Deep architecture documentation
├── frontend/.env                        # Frontend runtime config (Turnstile site key)
├── backend/.env                         # Backend config (all secrets)
└── docker-compose.yml

Deployment Notes

• The frontend Nginx binds to 127.0.0.1:8081 — put Caddy or Nginx in front for HTTPS
• PostgreSQL data persists in the postgres_data Docker volume — back it up regularly
• Uploads live in the uploads_data volume — includes extracted question images
• Redis data persists in redis_data volume — holds runtime settings and job state
• Set APP_URL to your public domain so email verification and password reset links work
• Frontend env vars (like Turnstile site key) are injected at container startup, not build time — change and restart, no rebuild needed

TTS Providers

Provider	Model/voice ID format	Key needed
Kokoro via LiteLLM	local-kokoro-tts:am_adam, local-kokoro-tts:af_bella	LITELLM_API_KEY

The part before : is the LiteLLM speech model route. The part after : is the Kokoro speaker voice.