joseph-gerald/express-chat — reverse-engineered prompt

Build me a simple web chatroom using Express and WebSockets. I want someone to open the site in a browser, type a nickname, join one shared room, and send messages that appear instantly for everyone else who is connected.

Keep it lightweight and easy to run locally. The page should look clean enough to use, with a message area, a text box, a send button, and basic status messages when people join or leave. It should handle empty names and empty messages gracefully, and it should not crash if someone disconnects.

Please set up the server, the client page, and the npm scripts so I can install it and start it with one command. Add a short README that explains how to run it and what the app does. Don’t add accounts, databases, private rooms, or anything complicated. Just make the basic live chat work well.