You Were Gonna End Up Here

"Every step, every choice, a link in a chain forged long before you arrived. You were always gonna end up here."

An interactive, full-stack web application that explores the philosophy of determinism. Users begin with a single event and trace its causes backward, guided by a generative AI, to uncover an inevitable origin point.

Join the community and share your causal chain on our Discord Server!

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Table of Contents

• About The Project
• Live Demo
• Screenshot
• Built With
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
• How It Works
• Contributing
• License

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About The Project

This project is an experiment in interactive storytelling and applied philosophy. It challenges the notion of free will by creating a compelling narrative of cause and effect. Starting from a user-defined premise, the application uses Google's Gemini API to generate a branching, yet convergent, path of preceding causes. The goal is to make the user feel like a participant in a causal chain that is both personal and universal, leading them to a foundational truth they couldn't have escaped.

Live Demo

Experience the inevitable yourself: https://you-were-gonna-end-up-here.vercel.app/

Screenshots

Below are some previews of the application in action.

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This project is built on a modern, full-stack architecture.

• Frontend: React.js, Vite
• Backend: Node.js, Express.js
• AI: Google Gemini
• Deployment: Vercel

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Getting Started

To get a local copy up and running, follow these steps.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or later)
• npm / pnpm / yarn

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/bvrvl/you-were-gonna-end-up-here.git
   cd you-were-gonna-end-up-here

2. Install NPM packages

   npm install

3. Set up your environment variables You'll need a Google Gemini API key. Create a .env file in the root of the project and add your key:

   GEMINI_API_KEY='YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

4. Run the development server This will start the frontend on http://localhost:5173 (or another port if 5173 is busy) and the backend API server on http://localhost:3001.

   npm run dev

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How It Works

The application state is managed by React on the frontend. When a user makes a choice, the entire history of their causal chain is sent to a serverless backend running on Vercel.

1. User Input: The user provides the first "cause" or selects one from an AI-generated list.
2. API Call: The React frontend POSTs the entire causal history to the /api/generate endpoint.
3. AI Processing: The Node.js/Express backend receives the history. It constructs a detailed prompt for the Gemini API, instructing it to act as a "philosophical guide."
4. Dynamic Prompting: The prompt changes based on the length of the chain.
   • For short chains (<5 links), the AI is in Exploration Mode, providing diverse and insightful preceding causes.
   • For longer chains (>=5 links), the AI enters Convergence Mode, guiding the user toward a definitive, foundational origin point (e.g., "You were born," "The laws of physics were set").
5. Structured JSON Response: The Gemini model is configured to return a strictly-typed JSON object, ensuring reliable communication with the frontend.
6. UI Update: The frontend parses the response and updates the UI, either presenting the next set of choices or displaying the final, inevitable conclusion.

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Contributing

Contributions, ideas, and feedback are always welcome.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement".

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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Led and developed by @bvrvl as part of Kritim Labs, an independent creative technology studio.

License

Distributed under the ISC License. See LICENSE file for more information.