MELEE You're watching anyway. Now watch together.

meleeme.com

Melee is a social prediction platform where private friend groups compete around any structured event — sports brackets, award show ballots, reality TV eliminations, and more. It was discovered, not designed: an accidental beta built for a single friend group proved that the social layer drives more engagement than the event itself.

What it does A Host creates a Melee in minutes — describing the event in plain English, letting the AI scaffold the full structure, then sharing an invite code with their group. Everyone submits picks. Picks are visible to the group immediately. The leaderboard updates as results come in. A Chatter feed lets the group talk trash in real time.

The event is the excuse. The banter is the product.

Core features:

AI-assisted event creation — describe any event, get a fully structured Melee in seconds Private Groups with invite codes and user-defined names Real-time leaderboard, Chatter feed, and Activity Feed Pick transparency — your picks are visible to the group the moment you submit Pick change history — last-minute hedges are visible to everyone and live forever after the deadline Zero-knowledge entry — random autofill means anyone can play, no expertise required Spectator mode — invite-only read-only access for non-participants Works for any event: brackets, ballots, pick'em, survival pools, and more

MVP event types Format Description First Melee Bracket Single-elimination picks round by round NCAA DI Men's Lacrosse Championship (migrated from beta) Ballot Pick a winner per category, one night of results 2027 Oscars

Tech stack Layer Technology Cloud AWS Backend Node.js Primary DB PostgreSQL Feed / Chatter NoSQL (high-frequency write surfaces) Real-time WebSockets (API Gateway or equivalent) Auth JWT-based (provider at team discretion)

Full schema documentation is in SCHEMA.md and the Schema Reference Document. Read the schema doc before writing application code. Stack choices are at team discretion. Schema decisions are not.

Project structure /

├── README.md — this file

├── SCHEMA.md — full schema reference (see also the Schema Reference Document)

├── /src

│ ├── /api — Node.js API layer

│ ├── /db — database migrations and seed data

│ ├── /realtime — WebSocket handlers (Chatter, Activity Feed, leaderboard)

│ ├── /ai — event creation flow (plain English → structured Melee draft)

│ └── /client — frontend (framework at team discretion)

└── /docs

├── melee_brief.docx    — full product brief

└── melee_schema.docx   — schema reference document

Getting started Prerequisites Node.js 20+ PostgreSQL 15+ AWS account with appropriate IAM permissions API keys: see .env.example Setup

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/meleeme/melee.git

cd melee

Install dependencies

npm install

Configure environment

cp .env.example .env

Fill in your AWS credentials, DB connection string, and auth config

Run database migrations

npm run db:migrate

Seed the lacrosse bracket (migrated from beta)

npm run db:seed

Start the development server

npm run dev Environment variables Variable Description DATABASE_URL PostgreSQL connection string AWS_REGION AWS region JWT_SECRET Secret for JWT signing AI_API_KEY API key for event creation AI (Claude) WEBSOCKET_ENDPOINT WebSocket server endpoint

Full list in .env.example.

Non-negotiable schema rules These apply regardless of stack choices. See SCHEMA.md for full details.

Picks are group-scoped at the DB level. A pick is user + group + stage + contender — not just user + stage + contender. Enforced in the query layer, not just the UI. pick_history exists from day one. Pick change history is a core social feature. It cannot be added retroactively. Stage hierarchy is recursive via parent_id. One table handles brackets, ballots, survival pools, and any future format. No hard deletes. Use deleted_at soft deletes on users, groups, and events. Historical pick data must be preserved. Real-time is not optional. Chatter, Activity Feed, and leaderboard updates must push to connected clients. No polling.

Roadmap Phase Focus Status Phase 0 Accidental beta — NCAA lacrosse bracket POC ✅ Complete Phase 1 — MVP Generalized platform, Groups, AI event creation, Oscars ballot 🔨 In progress Phase 2 — Beta Polymarket integration, second friend group, NFL Pick'em Upcoming Phase 3 — Open Beta User-generated events, public launch, cross-event Group leaderboard Upcoming Phase 4 — Monetization Host Pro, Member Expression, media partnerships Future

Contributing This is a private project in active development. If you're on the build team and don't have access, reach out to the project lead.

MELEE · meleeme.com · Private · May 2026