Hi everyone! I’m a student building a project called Student Focus with the help of ChatGPT. I’m using ChatGPT as a development/technical partner while I learn and build the product myself. The goal is to create a simple, student-friendly productivity system that helps students plan their study sessions, complete tasks, track progress, and reduce distractions through a dedicated Focus Mode.
The current product direction includes a study dashboard, daily study plan, task completion, progress tracking, discipline/streak concepts, and a 25-minute Focus Mode. The current frontend is built with React + TypeScript, and the project is still in active development. I’m deliberately trying to build this properly rather than just making a visual prototype.
CURRENT PROBLEM
The biggest blocker right now is authentication.
1. Email authentication
When attempting to sign in, the application returns:
“Unable to sign in. Please try again.”
The exact underlying cause has not yet been confirmed.
2. Google OAuth
When I select:
“Continue with Google”
the expected OAuth process does not successfully return me to an authenticated application state. Instead, I end up in a broken/blank navigation state.
The expected flow is:
Student Focus → Google OAuth → Google authentication → callback/redirect → session creation → Student Focus dashboard
But that complete flow is currently not working.
WHAT I DON’T WANT TO DO
I don’t want to randomly change authentication code until something appears to work.
I want to understand where the failure actually occurs:
Frontend
↓
Auth request
↓
OAuth provider
↓
Redirect URI
↓
Callback
↓
Session
↓
Application route
I’m especially interested in determining whether the problem is caused by:
- authentication client configuration
- Google OAuth provider configuration
- redirect/callback URL
- environment variables
- incorrect frontend auth logic
- session creation/restoration
- routing after authentication
- development vs production configuration
- backend/auth-service configuration
- browser console/runtime errors
I don’t want to assume the cause before collecting evidence.
CURRENT PROJECT STATUS
Product: In development
Core UI: Implemented
Study tasks: Implemented
Progress tracking: Implemented
Focus Mode: Implemented
Authentication: Unresolved
Google OAuth: Unverified / failing
Security: Not fully verified
QA: Not complete
Production readiness: No
HOW I’M APPROACHING THE PROJECT
I’m also experimenting with a more structured AI-assisted development workflow. I’ve been using ChatGPT not just for generating code, but for roles such as product planning, software engineering, AI engineering, QA, security review, and red-team analysis.
However, I want human/community technical feedback as well. I don’t want to blindly trust an AI-generated solution, especially for authentication and security.
My intended workflow is:
Understand problem
↓
Inspect evidence
↓
Identify root cause
↓
Implement minimal fix
↓
Test
↓
Security review
↓
Verify
WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR
If you have experience with React/TypeScript authentication, Google OAuth, OAuth redirects/callbacks, or modern web authentication architectures, I would appreciate help determining the correct debugging path.
In particular, I’d like to know:
Where should I inspect first to determine exactly where the OAuth flow is failing?
I can provide the relevant authentication code, project structure, browser console errors, network requests, and configuration details with all secrets/API keys removed.
I’m building this project with ChatGPT as an AI development partner, but my goal is to actually understand the engineering behind the system and eventually make the application reliable enough for real users.
Any technical guidance, debugging methodology, or architectural feedback would be very valuable.