Backchannel Documentation
Backchannel is a real-time meeting analysis app. A React frontend captures microphone (and optionally tab/system) audio, streams it to a FastAPI backend over WebSocket, and the backend produces a speaker-attributed transcript while a set of provider-routed AI agents surface questions, observations, opportunities, objections, and action items as the conversation happens.
This folder is the deeper technical reference behind the top-level README.
Contents
Section titled “Contents”| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Quickstart | Running with Docker Compose, local development, database migrations, tests |
| Architecture | The live call path end to end, frontend structure, backend key files |
| Agent System | The orchestrator, each agent’s trigger and purpose, configuration and overrides |
| Audio Pipeline | Capture format, VAD and diarization, batch transcription routing, audio storage |
| WebSocket Protocol | Binary audio framing and every JSON message type on /ws/{session_id} |
| REST API | Endpoint reference for all routers, grouped by resource |
| Configuration | Settings, environment variables, encrypted credentials, the model registry |
| Deployment | Docker Compose services, GPU support, nginx proxying, startup behavior |
Reading order
Section titled “Reading order”If you are new to the codebase, read Quickstart to get the stack running, then Architecture for the mental model, then Agent System – most feature work touches one of those three areas. The protocol and API pages are references to consult as needed.