Spotlight is a modern mobile app built using React Native with Expo, designed to let users share, comment, and bookmark posts. It combines a smooth user experience with real-time updates, secure authentication, and a clean visual style. (aka an instagram clone)
This project is where I learned how to apply my React skills in a mobile environment—building everything from UI components to backend integration.
- React Native (Expo) – For building the mobile UI
- Clerk – For user authentication and session management
- Convex – As the real-time backend and database
- 🔐 User Auth – Sign up, sign in, and session management with Clerk
- 🖼️ Post – Upload and view image-based posts
- 💬 Comment – Engage with content through a comment system
- 📌 Bookmark – Save posts for later viewing
- 🔁 Share – Ability to share posts
- 🕒 Timestamps – Human-readable time (e.g. “2 hours ago”)
- 📱 Responsive Design – Optimized for mobile UX
- 💾 Local caching – Via
expo-imagefor faster image loading - 🧼 Safe Area Layouts – With
react-native-safe-area-context - 🎨 Custom Fonts – Clean aesthetic with JetBrains Mono
I built Spotlight as a self-learning project to dive into mobile app development using React Native. Through this app, I learned:
- How to structure and style mobile UIs
- How to manage authenticated users with Clerk
- How to store and retrieve data in real time using Convex
- How to design mobile-friendly interaction flows like bookmarking and commenting
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Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/your-username/spotlight-app.git cd spotlight-app -
Install dependencies
npm install
-
Set up environment Create a
.envfile with your Clerk and Convex project credentials. -
Start the app
npx expo
