Wizard-of-Oz Study App

A small Wizard-of-Oz study web app built with Node.js, Express, and Socket.IO. It uses a simple shared permission switch between a researcher and any number of participants.

Interfaces

• / — links to both interfaces
• /participant — participant interface
• /wizard — researcher interface
• /health — returns { "status": "ok" }

Shared State

The server is authoritative and keeps two Boolean values in memory:

{
  "permissionRequested": false,
  "permissionGranted": false
}

• The researcher clicks Ring for permission to set permissionRequested to true.
• Any participant can click Allow agent to talk to set permissionGranted to true.
• One grant is sufficient; other participants are not required.
• The researcher clicks Reset to set both values back to false.

Running Locally

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

2. Start the server:

   npm start

3. Open the interfaces:
   • http://localhost:3000/participant
   • http://localhost:3000/wizard
4. To test multiple participants, open several browser tabs pointed at http://localhost:3000/participant. The researcher page shows the live participant count.

Deploying to Railway

1. Push this repository to GitHub.
2. In Railway, create a new project and deploy from the GitHub repository.
3. Railway runs the app with npm start (defined in package.json).
4. In the service settings, generate a public domain.
5. Open these routes on the generated domain:
   • /participant
   • /wizard

Notes

• No database, authentication, or session IDs are used.
• All state is stored in server memory and will reset whenever the Railway service restarts (redeploys, crashes, or sleeps).