Technical Documentation

1. Overview

Convoy is an invite-only, safety-first networking platform designed specifically for van-life travelers and digital nomads. It enables travelers living and moving in vans to:

• Discover nearby nomads in real time
• Match based on shared travel direction ("Vector")
• Interact through a swipe-based discovery system (Vibe Zone)
• Control privacy and visibility through layered safety settings
• Unlock advanced coordination tools via subscription (Convoy Pro)

Convoy combines community trust, real-time location intelligence, and monetized safety tooling to create a secure ecosystem for nomadic travel.

2. Problem Statement

Van-life travelers frequently move through remote, unfamiliar, and sometimes unsafe areas. Existing tools (Google Maps, social media, messaging apps) do not provide:

• Verified, gated community onboarding
• Route-based traveler matching
• Location privacy controls
• Convoy coordination mechanisms
• Safety-first interaction architecture

3. Community Growth Model

Convoy operates on a progressive invite system to ensure trust:

1. A verified member invites a new user.
2. The invited user joins using a unique invite code.
3. After onboarding, that user receives limited invite capacity.
4. The network grows through trusted referrals only.

Benefits: Organic trust graph, reduced spam/bot infiltration, higher accountability.

4. Technology Stack

5. System Architecture

High-Level Flow: User (Browser) -> Next.js Frontend -> Firebase Auth -> Firestore -> RevenueCat Validation -> Firebase Admin Server Actions.

• Client-side reads (real-time on Snapshot)
• Sensitive writes proxied through server actions
• Firestore security rules enforce access boundaries
• Subscription state synced to Firestore via server-side verification

6. Core Features

7. Data Model

Collections:

• users
• invites
• vibe-likes
• vibe-interactions
• vibe-messages
• locationHistory