Mental Health Chatbot (Mira)

A gentle, empathetic AI companion named Mira that chats with users about their feelings. Built with Flask and the Gemini API.

Features

• Warm, non-judgmental responses with a safety note for crisis situations
• Clean, calming UI with chat history
• Typing indicator ("Mira is thinking…")
• Simple mood detection on each input
• Maintains the last 10 messages for context

Tech Stack

• Backend: Flask (Python)
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, JS (vanilla)
• AI: Google Gemini via google-genai

Setup

1. Clone this repository and move into the folder.
2. Create a virtual environment (optional but recommended).
3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set your environment variables (at minimum, your Gemini API key). You can put these in a .env file in the project root (auto-loaded):

   GOOGLE_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
   GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-2.5-flash
   FLASK_SECRET_KEY=change-me

   Or set them manually:
   • On macOS/Linux:

     export GOOGLE_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
     export GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-2.5-flash   
     export FLASK_SECRET_KEY=change-me     

   • On Windows (PowerShell):

     setx GOOGLE_API_KEY "YOUR_API_KEY"
     setx GEMINI_MODEL "gemini-2.5-flash"
     setx FLASK_SECRET_KEY "change-me"

Run Locally

python app.py

Visit http://localhost:5000 in your browser.

Deploy

• Render/Replit: Configure a Python web service, set GOOGLE_API_KEY (and optional GEMINI_MODEL, FLASK_SECRET_KEY) in environment. Set start command to python app.py.
• The app binds to 0.0.0.0 and respects the PORT environment variable when present.

Notes

• Mira is supportive and not a medical professional. For crisis situations, encourage contacting a trusted person or local helpline.
• The code uses the google-genai Python SDK. Ensure your API key has access to the selected Gemini model.