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Building a Chatbot with React, Node.js, and OpenAI: A Step-by-Step Guide

AI

Building a Chatbot with React, Node.js, and OpenAI: A Step-by-Step Guide

March 12, 2025 · 10 min read

This guide will walk you through creating a chatbot using React for the frontend, Node.js for the backend, and OpenAI’s powerful language models. 

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following before you begin: 
  • Basic knowledge of JavaScript and experience with React and Node.js.
  • Node.js installed on your machine.
  • An account with OpenAI and access to their API. 

Step 1: Using Node.js to Set Up Your Backend

Initialize Node.js project 
Make a new project directory and launch a Node.js application:
Initialize-Node.js-project.webp
Install dependencies 
You’ll need “express” for creating the server and “axios” for making HTTP requests to the OpenAI API. You can replace “express” with server of your choice. Instead of “axios” you can use the built-in “fetch” for making HTTP requests
HTTP-requests.webp
Set up Express server 
Create a file named server.js and initialize an express app. The express app will be listening on PORT 5000. 
PORT-5000.webp
Integrate OpenAI API 
Add a route to handle POST requests from our React application that will interact with OpenAI. This POST request will contain user message in the body. 
POST.webp

Step 2: Using React to Set Up Your Frontend

Initialize a Vite project  
Create a new directory for your project and initialize a React application: 
React-application.webp

Build Chat Interface

Create a simple chat interface in your App component. We are using “messages” state to manage our array of chat messages.
messages-1024x982.webp
 
Implementing handleSendClick 
We send an HTTP request to the express backend when a user types a message in the input field and clicks the send button. We will display the OpenAI message, or, in the event of an error, an error message based on the response. 
Here is how we are monitoring the “loading” state: 
loading-1024x180.webp
The assistant message will be empty when the user clicks the send button while an HTTP request is still being processed. 
processed-1024x714.webp

Improve User Experience

Scrolling to the end of messages  
To scroll to the end of messages when a user clicks on the send button, we will create an empty div element and attach a ref to it.
Scrolling-to-the-end-of-messages-2-1-1024x266.webp
Scrolling-to-the-end-of-messages-2-1024x680.webp
 
Now, when a user clicks on the send button, we will scroll to the anchor element. 
anchor-element-1024x335.webp
Preventing scroll to bottom if user scrolls up after sending message 
Create another ref to check whether anchor element is in viewport. If it’s not in viewport, that means user has scrolled up and hence we will not scroll down. 
scroll-down-1024x308.webp
scroll-down-2-1536x669.webp
 
Add a scroll handler to div wrapping messages. 
wrapping-messages-1024x280.webp
Scrolling-to-the-end-of-messages-2-1024x680.webp

Conclusion

In this blog we discussed building a chatbot with React, Node.js, and OpenAI. Hope this step-by-step guide was helpful to you. Are you curious to know more about AI tools and technologies? Our next blog from this series will provide you with interesting and useful information by guiding on improving Flolite with an AI-Powered Chatbot. Click here to increase your knowledge and tech expertise.

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puneet Taneja

Puneet Taneja

CPO (Chief Planning Officer)

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Have a Question?

puneet Taneja

Puneet Taneja

CPO (Chief Planning Officer)

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