now: when both fell in the same millisecond, which createUser's cached password hash made common, the dump was outside the week, the digest empty, and the test failed about one run in fifteen. Reproduced with a dump stamped at now (no digest) and one a millisecond earlier (one); the dump is now dated a day back, as "recent" meant. 60 runs of the digest tests, 6 of the backend suite (277 tests) and 4 of the frontend suite (684 tests) pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
gerbeur
A small invite-only social platform for sharing links and files. Users can post URLs and media (YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, images, audio, video, …), vote, comment, follow each other, build playlists, and search content. A real-time WebSocket layer handles live presence, vote counts, and notifications, and weekly and monthly email digests sum up what happened. The UI is localized (English and French) and ships multiple visual themes.
Stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Runtime | Deno 2.x |
| API | Oak (HTTP + WebSocket) |
| Database | SQLite via node:sqlite |
| Frontend | React 19 + Vite 8 |
Development
Prerequisites
- Deno 2.x
Setup
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env: set GERBEUR_JWT_SECRET to the output of: openssl rand -hex 32
Run
deno task dev
This starts both the API server (port 8000, with file watching) and the Vite dev server (port 3000) concurrently.
Open http://localhost:3000. On first run a default
admin / admin account is created — change the password immediately.
Environment variables
See .env.example for the full list with descriptions. Key
variables:
| Variable | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
GERBEUR_JWT_SECRET |
JWT signing secret — required, generate with openssl rand -hex 32 |
— |
GERBEUR_PUBLIC_URL |
Public-facing URL of the server (no trailing slash) — used for CORS, WebSocket origin, email links, OG URLs | http://localhost:GERBEUR_PORT |
GERBEUR_PORT |
Internal port Oak listens on | 8000 |
GERBEUR_LISTEN_HOST |
Network interface Oak binds to; use 127.0.0.1 to restrict to loopback |
0.0.0.0 |
GERBEUR_FRONTEND_URL |
Frontend base URL for email links and CORS; auto-added to allowed origins — the only variable needed when the frontend runs on a separate host | GERBEUR_PUBLIC_URL |
GERBEUR_ALLOWED_ORIGINS |
Comma-separated extra origins for CORS/WebSocket; PUBLIC_URL and FRONTEND_URL are always included — typically only needed in dev for the Vite server |
"" (empty) |
GERBEUR_SITE_NAME |
Site name used in the browser tab, app header, OG meta tags, and emails | gerbeur |
GERBEUR_SMTPS_URL |
SMTPS connection URL for outgoing email (smtps://user:pass@host:465); unset sends no email |
unset |
GERBEUR_FROM_EMAIL |
Sender of every email — required when GERBEUR_SMTPS_URL is set, or the server won't start |
unset |
GERBEUR_EMAIL_LOCALE |
Language of every email: en or fr |
en |
GERBEUR_DEFAULT_STYLE |
The instance's style (smooth, brutalist, geocities, nyt, kanagawa, melange): the site's until one is picked, and the welcome and reset emails' |
smooth |
GERBEUR_WELCOME_EMAIL_BODY |
Markdown body for the account-creation welcome email; supports {{username}} and {{site_name}} |
built-in template |
GERBEUR_COMMUNITY_REFRESH_MINUTES |
How often, in minutes, the /community page's figures are recomputed |
15 |
VITE_API_PROTOCOL |
API protocol baked into the frontend bundle (see Production) | http |
VITE_API_HOSTNAME |
API hostname baked into the frontend bundle | localhost |
VITE_API_PORT |
API port baked into the frontend bundle | 8000 |
Production
Docker (recommended)
The standard deployment runs API and frontend in a single container. The API
server (Oak) serves the compiled frontend as static files, so both share the
same origin — no VITE_API_* build args needed. Set GERBEUR_PUBLIC_URL to the
externally-visible URL; it is automatically allowed for HTTP/WebSocket requests.
docker build -t gerbeur .
docker build -t gerbeur .
docker run -d \
-p 8000:8000 \
-v gerbeur-db:/app/api/sql \
-v gerbeur-uploads:/app/api/uploads \
-e GERBEUR_JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
-e GERBEUR_PUBLIC_URL=https://example.com \
-e GERBEUR_SITE_NAME=mysite \
--name gerbeur \
gerbeur
The two volumes are required for persistence:
gerbeur-db— SQLite database (api/sql/gerbeur.db), initialized automatically on first rungerbeur-uploads— user-uploaded files (api/uploads/)
Separate API and frontend (optional)
If you need to run the API on a different host than the frontend, pass the API
location as build args so it gets baked into the frontend bundle. In that setup,
add the frontend origin to GERBEUR_ALLOWED_ORIGINS so cross-origin
HTTP/WebSocket requests are accepted:
docker build \
--build-arg VITE_API_PROTOCOL=https \
--build-arg VITE_API_HOSTNAME=api.example.com \
--build-arg VITE_API_PORT=443 \
-t gerbeur .
Reverse proxy
Put a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy, …) in front of the container to handle TLS. Forward everything to port 8000. Example Caddyfile:
example.com {
reverse_proxy localhost:8000
}
Project structure
shared/ # Imported by both halves: API and socket types, limits, permissions
test/ # Tests of shared/ (Deno): test/<module>.test.ts
locales/ # Lingui catalogues (en, fr): the interface's and the emails' messages
api/
main.ts # Entry point — Oak application, middleware, routes
config.ts # Environment variables
middleware/ # Oak middleware: errors, auth, OG tags
routes/ # One router per API resource: HTTP + WebSocket, no SQL
services/ # Business logic and every SQL query
remote/ # Everything that fetches from other sites
mail/ # One template per email, and the layout they share
providers/ # Link metadata providers (YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, …)
model/ # Per table: row type, row guard, row ↔ API mappers
validators/ # Per domain: request body guards
lib/ # Helpers with no SQL and no outbound fetch: JWT, slugs, files, …
db/
connection.ts # The database handle and transaction(); creates a new database
startup.ts # Housekeeping run when the database opens
schema.sql # Database schema
migrate.ts # Migration runner
migrations/ # Versioned schema migrations
test/ # Backend tests (Deno): test/<layer>/<module>.test.ts
sql/
gerbeur.db # SQLite database (not committed)
uploads/ # User-uploaded files — avatars, dumps, thumbnails, … (not committed)
src/ # React frontend (Vite)
config/ # API base URL, default feed tab, player mode, instance settings
pages/ # One component per route, nothing else
components/ # React components only (.tsx)
contexts/ # FooContext.ts + FooProvider.tsx pairs
hooks/ # Every hook (useFoo.ts)
utils/ # Every non-React module: pure helpers, storage, API glue
test/ # Frontend tests (Vitest): test/<layer>/<domain>/<Module>.test.tsx
themes/ # Per-theme CSS files
i18n.ts # Lingui runtime setup
public/ # Static assets (favicon, manifest, service worker)
URLs
Every page and API path follows one of two rules, which API.md
states, along with every page, the slug and username rules and every
endpoint. Pages are a hierarchy under @name for users and plain words for
categories and app pages (/@bob/dumps/never-gonna, /music/hot), built and
parsed by shared/paths.ts. API resources are /api/<plural>/<key>, the
caller's own under /api/me. A route change updates its router's module doc
and API.md together.
Whatever crosses the wire is defined once, in shared/: the API envelope
(shared/api.ts), each domain's types and request bodies (shared/dump.ts,
shared/user.ts, …), the socket protocol (shared/ws.ts), the validation
limits and the role permissions. The server sends Dates; the client reads
Wire<T>, the same type with every Date an ISO string, and turns it back with
src/utils/shared/deserialize.ts. shared/ imports nothing from either half.
The backend is split by layer, one kind of module per folder, and each file is
named after its domain: the dumps are routes/dumps.ts,
services/dump-service.ts, model/dump.ts and validators/dump.ts. Routes
parse and answer, services hold the logic and the SQL, remote/ is the only
place that fetches from other sites, and mail/ renders each email that
services/email-service.ts sends. Tests mirror the source one file per module,
so the tests of services/chat-service.ts are in
test/services/chat-service.test.ts.
Comments
A comment says what the code can't. If deleting it would lose nothing, it is the wrong comment: on an export, rewrite it; anywhere else, delete it.
Every module and every export has a JSDoc (/** */). Each gives at least
one of:
- Context: who uses it and where (a page and its route, a caller, a WebSocket message).
- Usage: what a caller must know to use it correctly, such as a precondition, an invariant, what it leaves to the caller, or a side effect. Add an example only when the call isn't obvious.
- Place in the chain: where its input comes from and where its output goes.
A doc opens with the role, then the mechanism, then the details. Its first
sentence says what part of the app the thing serves or what problem it solves,
so a reader who has never seen it knows why it exists. How it does that (what
feeds it, what reads it, how it's split) comes next, and the details last. Each
sentence makes sense given only the ones before it. Not "Declares the three
contexts WSProvider fills from the WebSocket. They are split so that a feed
doesn't re-render with every chat message", which leaves the reason for last,
but "Live updates from the server reach the pages through three contexts, split
so that a feed doesn't re-render with every chat message. WSProvider fills
them from its WebSocket."
Once the role is said, a type's doc is phrased from the value's side, naming the producer and the consumer: "Returned to Y by X when Z", "Passed to Y by X". It is never "What X returns to Y" or "What X passes to Y".
Don't pack a doc into a label followed by a colon and a list ("X: one thing, plus some other thing"). Write sentences with a subject and a verb.
When the obvious comment is useless, write the useful one: the context is always there. A field (of an interface, or a parameter) gets a doc only when it adds something its parent's doc doesn't. Context that concerns the whole type goes on the type, not on one of its fields. The same goes for private functions and locals. None of these count as a doc:
- a restatement of the name or type (
/** The dump. */, "Whether it is loading.", "The props of X.", "Renders the X."); - a description of what the body, the JSX or the SQL plainly does;
- a list that goes stale (every caller of a widely used component): name the kind of caller instead.
When a comment is there, it is as short as it can be, often one sentence, and it
is written in full sentences. Labels and fragments ("Upvotes on dumps.") don't
count. A module doc is a few lines at most. It opens with the module's role in
the app, then says how it plays it, who calls it and what it hands back, and it
doesn't repeat what its exports' docs say. @throws stays on whatever throws to
its caller, with the statuses of an APIException and when each happens. A
router's module doc lists its endpoints (method, path, who may call it), since
the code states them nowhere in one place. A summary never ends in a colon: the
reference shows it alone.
// comments go wherever the code isn't obvious. They explain why, not
what: a workaround, an ordering constraint, a surprising limitation, a security
reason, an event handler that must not bubble.
Every claim is checked against the code (grep the callers). A wrong comment is worse than none.
Reference
In the frontend, every exported function states its return type, so the
reference can show it: a component returns React.JSX.Element (or | null), a
hook returning several things returns a documented Use<Name>Result interface.
A component that takes props takes an exported <Name>Props interface. React's
types are used through the global React namespace rather than a default import
of react, which deno doc can't follow.
deno task doc builds the HTML reference into docs/ from every module of
api/, shared/ and src/ but the tests. Its index page is the module doc of
mod.ts at the root, which introduces the repository's three parts and their
layers in prose; deno doc builds the list of every module itself, grouped by
path. The docs workflow publishes it on every push to main that touches
them. deno task doc:lint checks the rules the linter can see, and that no
summary ends in a colon, through doc-lint.ts. Two kinds of diagnostic are let
through. A field without a doc passes, since a field gets one only when it adds
to its type's. deno doc doesn't document npm packages, so it takes a type
imported from one (react-hook-form's FieldValues, say) for a private one, and
those references pass too.
Each of the frontend's components/, contexts/, hooks/ and utils/ is
split into the same domain folders — auth, category, chat, comment,
dump, editor, feed, form, layout, player, playlist, profile,
social, theme, ws — plus shared/ for what belongs to no single domain.
So the chat lives in components/chat/, contexts/chat/, hooks/chat/ and
utils/chat/, and its tests in test/<same path>. Files are imported directly
(no index.ts barrels), and everything uses named exports.