🎓 Inquire

Inquire is a modern, student-first knowledge platform designed to bring together the best of Stack Overflow, Reddit, and community-driven tools — all tailored to the needs of students. Built with the latest technologies in the .NET ecosystem, Inquire makes it easier than ever for students to ask questions, share insights, chat, and stay informed within their academic environments.

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✨ Overview

Inquire isn’t just a Q&A site — it’s a unified platform for student collaboration, built by students, for students.

Whether you're:

• Asking tough course-related questions
• Sharing code snippets or project ideas
• Posting campus-wide announcements
• Hosting informal discussions and debates

Inquire offers a clean, structured, and intuitive space to centralize academic knowledge and build student communities.

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🌱 Project Philosophy

Inquire is built as a passion project by students, for students. It’s a space where:

Knowledge isn’t siloed — everyone can contribute and learn.

Discussions aren’t lost — threads are indexed, searchable, and permanent.

Tech matters — it’s not just about what you build, but how you build it.

We believe this platform could become a cornerstone for student communities — technical or otherwise — in the digital age.

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🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions of all kinds:

Feature ideas and requests

UI/UX suggestions

Code improvements

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💡 Key Features

• 🧠 Q&A System — Ask and answer questions with voting and tagging, Stack Overflow-style.
• 📢 Announcements — Broadcast important updates across courses, departments, or student groups.
• 🧵 Threaded Discussions — Engage in ongoing discussions, Reddit-style, on academic or campus-related topics.
• 💬 Real-Time Chat — Built-in chat for casual or focused academic discussions.
• 🏷️ Topic Tagging & Search — Find relevant questions, threads, and announcements quickly.
• 🎓 Student Profiles — Highlight skills, contributions, and engagement within your academic community.
• 🔒 Privacy-First & Campus-Aware — Designed with institutional and personal boundaries in mind.

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🧪 Built With Industry-Relevant Tech

Inquire is a showcase of modern .NET SaaS development, using current best practices and tooling:

• .NET 8.0 — Latest LTS version of the framework for optimal performance and long-term support.
• ASP.NET Core — Blazing-fast web backend and APIs.
• Entity Framework Core — Modern ORM for secure, efficient data access.
• SignalR — Real-time capabilities for chat and live interactions.
• Blazor / Razor Pages — Component-based UI (if applicable).
• Clean Architecture — Maintainable codebase with separation of concerns.
• Dockerized Deployment — Production-ready container support.
• CI/CD Ready — GitHub Actions workflows for automated builds and deployments (planned/in-progress).

🔧 The codebase is a growing foundation meant to evolve with feedback, contributions, and student innovation.

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🚀 Getting Started

✅ Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK
• SQL Server or PostgreSQL (local or Docker)
• Node.js (if front-end uses modern tooling)
• Visual Studio 2022+ or VS Code

📦 Running Locally

git clone https://github.com/GtJohnny/Inquire.git
cd Inquire
dotnet build
dotnet run --project src/Inquire.Web

├ Project Structure

/Inquire
├── src/
│   ├── Inquire.Core/         # Domain models and interfaces
│   ├── Inquire.Infrastructure/  # EF Core and data logic
│   ├── Inquire.Web/          # ASP.NET Core web app
│   └── Inquire.Shared/       # Common utilities and DTOs
├── tests/                    # Unit and integration tests
├── .github/                  # Actions, workflows
└── README.md