Try it now — send hi on WhatsApp to +91 90379 78905.

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Why this exists

Hundreds of initiatives are trying to bring women artisans online. Almost all of them ask her to learn something first — an app, a dashboard, a checkout flow, English. The ones that don't, leave her offline and invisible.

HastKala asks her to learn nothing. The whole journey — discovery, training, certification, listing, orders, payments, support — happens inside one app she already trusts: WhatsApp.

We are not asking women artisans to become digital sellers.
We are making digital selling adapt to them.

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How it works

Three women, three different starting points. One platform that meets each of them where they are.

                                                                
                ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐        
                │         The Hesitant Artisan         │        
                │                                      │        
                │   joins via her community,           │        
                │   takes a 7-day workshop,            │        
                │   becomes a certified seller.        │        
                └──────────────────┬───────────────────┘        
                                   │                            
                                   ▼                            
                ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐        
                │        The Confident Artisan         │        
                │                                      │        
                │   sends a photo + voice note,        │        
                │   bot drafts the listing,            │        
                │   product goes live, orders flow.    │        
                └──────────────────┬───────────────────┘        
                                   │                            
                                   ▼                            
                ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐        
                │       The Entrepreneur Artisan       │        
                │                                      │        
                │   web dashboard for inventory,       │        
                │   network, bulk requests, payments   │        
                │   — full control, on her terms.      │        
                └──────────────────────────────────────┘        

She never has to leave WhatsApp until she chooses to.

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What's inside

For the artisan (WhatsApp bot — apps/wa-bot)

• 5 languages: English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam
• Voice-first input — she speaks; the bot listens, transcribes, confirms
• 7-day learning track inside WhatsApp → certificate as a real PDF
• Listing flow: photo + voice note → AI-cleaned catalog entry, pre-filled and editable
• Orders, customer details, payment links — all delivered as WhatsApp messages
• Persistent session — once paired, the bot survives restarts and deploys without re-pairing
• Allowlist for safety; demo mode for testing without leaking real numbers

For the buyer (src/)

• Public marketplace at cyberkunju.com — TanStack Start SSR
• Browse by craft, district, or category; product story on every listing
• WhatsApp-style purchase flow — name, address, phone, all in natural language
• Order tracking, certificate viewing, community network browsing
• Buyer-side OTP authentication via WhatsApp (no passwords)

For the operations side (apps/api + vendor_ui/)

• Express + Prisma against Supabase Postgres
• Karigar Sakhi admin console — pending products, members, orders, certifications
• Activity feed — every approval, certificate, order, broadcast
• Razorpay payment links generated per order
• Cloudinary image hosting; OpenAI for AI extraction; Sarvam-ready for native Indic voice

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    cyberkunju.com (Cloudflare)              │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
                           │  HTTPS
                ┌──────────▼──────────┐
                │  EC2 / Fedora 43    │
                │  nginx :443         │
                └──┬──────┬──────┬────┘
                   │      │      │
        ┌──────────▼┐  ┌──▼──┐  ┌▼──────────┐
        │ web :3000 │  │ api │  │ wabot     │
        │ TanStack  │  │5000 │  │ :5001     │
        │ Start SSR │  │     │  │ Chromium  │
        └───────────┘  └──┬──┘  └─────┬─────┘
                          │           │
                  ┌───────▼───┐   ┌───▼──────┐
                  │ Supabase  │   │ WhatsApp │
                  │ Postgres  │   │ Web      │
                  └───────────┘   └──────────┘

CI/CD: every push to main deploys via GitHub Actions, with smoke tests against both the origin and the public Cloudflare URL.

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Getting started

Prerequisites

• Node 22+
• A Supabase Postgres DATABASE_URL
• An OpenAI API key
• A WhatsApp number for the bot (any Android phone or WhatsApp Web)

Quick start (local dev)

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/cyberkunju/hastkala.git
cd hastkala

# Install root deps (frontend + shared)
npm install

# API
cd apps/api && npm install && npx prisma generate
cp .env.example .env  # fill in DATABASE_URL, OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.
npm run dev           # starts on :5000

# WhatsApp bot
cd ../wa-bot && npm install
cp .env.example .env  # fill in OPENAI_API_KEY, ALLOWED_TEST_NUMBERS
npm run dev           # starts on :5001 — scan the QR

# Frontend
cd ../.. && npm run dev   # starts on :3000

Or run everything together:

npm run dev:all

Deploy

This repo deploys itself. Push to main, and the Deploy to EC2 workflow:

1. SSHes to the configured EC2 instance
2. Pulls the commit
3. Builds API, bot, and frontend
4. Smart-restarts only the services whose dist/ actually changed (preserves WhatsApp session)
5. Smoke-tests every public endpoint

Provisioning a fresh box is a one-shot script — see scripts/AWS-DEPLOY.md.

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Project layout

hastkala/
├── apps/
│   ├── api/                Express + Prisma backend
│   │   ├── prisma/         Schema (14 models: Artisan, Product, Order, …)
│   │   └── src/
│   │       ├── controllers/    Request handlers
│   │       ├── routes/         Express routers (/api/products, /api/orders, …)
│   │       ├── services/       AI, storage, WhatsApp integration
│   │       └── middleware/     Auth, error handling
│   │
│   └── wa-bot/             WhatsApp bot (whatsapp-web.js)
│       └── src/
│           ├── conversations/  ~70-state engine + per-flow handlers
│           ├── services/       Transcription, TTS, NLU, translation, Q&A
│           ├── server/         Internal HTTP server (:5001)
│           └── openwa/         WhatsApp Web client + supervisor
│
├── src/                    Buyer marketplace (TanStack Start)
│   ├── routes/             File-based routing
│   ├── components/         Layout, product, common
│   └── lib/                API client, i18n, Razorpay, types
│
├── vendor_ui/              Karigar Sakhi admin console (static HTML+JS)
├── scripts/                Deploy, bootstrap, runbooks
├── .github/workflows/      CI/CD
└── Logo/                   Brand assets

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The conversation engine

The bot is the heart of HastKala. It's a deterministic finite-state machine over ~70 conversation states, with NLU + voice transcription as the input layer:

Voice/text in any language
         │
         ▼
  ┌──────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐
  │  Transcribe  │───▶│  Universal cmds  │  RESET, MENU, BACK,
  │  (gpt-4o)    │    │                  │  HELP, LANGUAGE,
  └──────────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘  HUMAN, EXIT
                               │
                               ▼
                      ┌────────────────┐
                      │ NLU classifier │  Maps free text →
                      │ (gpt-4o-mini)  │  menu choice / nav
                      └────────┬───────┘
                               │
                               ▼
                      ┌────────────────┐
                      │ State dispatch │  ~70 states across
                      │                │  identity, seller,
                      └────────┬───────┘  buyer, sakhi flows
                               │
                               ▼
                      ┌────────────────┐
                      │ Translate +    │  ta/ml: gpt-4o-audio
                      │ TTS            │  en/hi/kn: gpt-4o-mini-tts
                      └────────────────┘  (Sarvam Bulbul if key set)

Voice-confirmation gates protect critical inputs (price, address, phone) — the bot reads back what it heard before committing.

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Languages

Language	Bot text	Voice in	Voice out (TTS)
English	Native pack	✅	Native
Hindi	Native pack	✅	Indic-tuned
Kannada	Native pack	✅	Indic-tuned
Tamil	Runtime trans	✅	Unified audio
Malayalam	Runtime trans	✅	Unified audio

Set SARVAM_API_KEY in apps/wa-bot/.env to switch the Indic stack to Sarvam Bulbul + Saaras for native-grade transcription and prosody.

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What's been built

Module	Where	Status
WhatsApp bot	apps/wa-bot	✅ Live
Voice transcription + TTS	services/transcribeService.ts, ttsService.ts	✅ Live
5-language UI	conversations/messages/{en,hi,kn}.ts + runtime	✅ Live
Product catalog API	apps/api/src/routes/product.routes.ts	✅ Live
Order management	apps/api/src/routes/order.routes.ts	✅ Live
Buyer marketplace	src/routes/	✅ Live
Karigar Sakhi admin (/admin)	src/routes/admin.tsx	✅ Live
Community + certification	apps/api/src/routes/community.routes.ts	✅ Live
7-day learning modules	apps/api/src/routes/community.routes.ts	✅ Live
Seller product CRUD (web)	src/routes/seller.tsx	✅ Live
Direct order → seller WhatsApp	apps/api/src/controllers/order.controller.ts	✅ Live
Artisan talent-request alerts	apps/api/src/routes/network.routes.ts	✅ Live
Cloudinary image hosting	apps/api/src/services/storage.service.ts	✅ Live
BUY deeplink → purchase flow	apps/wa-bot/src/conversations/engine.ts	✅ Live
Autoplay bot demo on homepage	src/components/common/BotDemo.tsx	✅ Live
WhatsApp CTA on homepage	src/routes/index.tsx	✅ Live
RESET clears pending state	apps/wa-bot/src/conversations/engine.ts	✅ Live
Buyer requests + quotes	apps/api/src/routes/{request,quote}.routes.ts	✅ Live
Auto-deploy CI/CD	.github/workflows/deploy.yml	✅ Live

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The numbers

• 5 Indian languages
• ~70 conversation states in the bot engine
• 14 Prisma models
• 17 frontend routes
• ~25 API route files
• 1 app the artisan needs to know — WhatsApp

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Built for

Project Sankalp / Code4Change Hackathon
Problem statement: W-1 — Artisan Women's Market Exclusion Across 15+ Craft Districts
Theme: Women's Entrepreneurship & Economic Empowerment

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

The artisan stories, names, and example imagery are illustrative; production deployments must collect explicit consent before showcasing real artisans publicly.

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HastKala — from a voice note to a livelihood