ideaforge

A full-stack idea management platform with AI-powered evaluation. Browse, filter, and evaluate software project ideas using quantitative metrics and automated AI scoring.

Architecture

IdeaForge is a dual-stack project:

• Backend: Python API (FastAPI) with SQLite storage and Claude API integration
• Frontend: Flutter Web/Mobile client with radar charts and real-time evaluation

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  Flutter Client  │────▶│   FastAPI        │────▶│  Claude API  │
│  (Web / Mobile)  │◀────│   Backend        │◀────│  (Evaluation)│
└─────────────────┘     └────────┬────────┘     └──────────────┘
                                 │
                        ┌────────▼────────┐
                        │     SQLite      │
                        │   (ideas.db)    │
                        └─────────────────┘

Features

• Idea browsing — Filter by status, category, and tags
• Metric scoring — 8 quantitative evaluation metrics (feasibility, market potential, uniqueness, personal interest, learning value, time to MVP, monetisation, maintenance)
• AI evaluation — Trigger Claude API to score ideas against all metrics with reasoning
• Score visualisation — Radar/spider charts showing metric profiles
• Comparison — Side-by-side idea comparison with aggregate rankings
• Demo mode — Public instance with curated ideas (read-only, rate-limited AI)

Stack

Backend

Component	Technology
API Framework	FastAPI 0.115+
ORM	SQLAlchemy 2.0+ (async)
Database	SQLite + aiosqlite
Validation	Pydantic 2.10+
AI	Anthropic Python SDK
Logging	structlog
Migrations	Alembic
Package Manager	uv

Frontend

Component	Technology
Framework	Flutter 3.27+
State	Riverpod 3.1+
Navigation	GoRouter
HTTP	dio
Charts	fl_chart

Getting Started

Backend

cd backend/
uv sync
uv run alembic upgrade head
uv run ideaforge db init
uv run ideaforge serve

API available at http://localhost:8000. Docs at http://localhost:8000/docs.

Frontend

cd frontend/
flutter pub get
dart run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs
flutter run -d chrome

Configuration

Backend configuration via environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
IDEAFORGE_DATABASE_URL	sqlite+aiosqlite:///data/ideas.db	Database path
IDEAFORGE_HOST	127.0.0.1	API host
IDEAFORGE_PORT	8000	API port
IDEAFORGE_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	—	Claude API key (required for AI eval)
IDEAFORGE_DEMO_MODE	false	Enable demo mode (read-only, rate-limited)
IDEAFORGE_LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Log level
IDEAFORGE_LOG_FORMAT	json	Log format (json or console)

Testing

# Backend
cd backend/
uv run pytest --cov=src/ideaforge

# Frontend
cd frontend/
flutter test --coverage

Relationship to idea-manager

IdeaForge extends the idea-manager project. The backend shares the same data model and evaluation framework, adding:

• Claude API integration for automated evaluation
• Demo mode for public deployment
• Optimised API endpoints for the Flutter client
• Docker deployment configuration

License

All rights reserved. Kai Chappell.