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Monitor the current thing. Your dashboard for the internet.
Build a deck, pack it with columns, refresh on demand — 47 plugin column types across social, news, GitHub, Hugging Face, arXiv, on-chain, prediction markets, prices, and the Chinese hot boards.

What it does

• You name a deck. Minitor packs it with whatever you're watching.
• 47 column types out of the box — social feeds, news, GitHub (including commits, CI runs, and Discussions), Hugging Face, arXiv, DEV.to, Product Hunt, npm + PyPI + crates.io packages, app reviews, on-chain transactions, prediction markets, CoinGecko prices, DeFiLlama TVL, Dexscreener DEX pairs, Chinese hot boards.
• Refresh per column or auto-fetch on creation. Load more pages 10 at a time.
• Shape the signal per column — highlight items with alert keywords, or filter the feed to "show only" / "hide" by keyword so a firehose column shows just what matters.
• ⌘K command palette over every deck, column, and action. Drag to reorder.
• Local-first by default — embedded PGlite, no Postgres install needed.

Quick start

The recommended path: one command, ./minitor. First column up in under a minute, zero infra.

Prereqs — Node 20+. That's it. PGlite is bundled (real Postgres compiled to WASM), so no Docker, no hosted database, no setup.

git clone https://github.com/aeonfun/minitor.git && cd minitor
./minitor

The launcher checks Node, picks the right package manager (npm / pnpm / yarn / bun based on lockfile), installs deps, copies .env.example → .env.local if missing, runs DB migrations against PGlite, and starts the dev server at http://localhost:3000. Re-running it just starts the server.

For X columns, paste a TwitterAPI.io key into TWITTER_API_KEY in .env.local (preferred: structured tweets, exact engagement). Grok / News / Web / Farcaster still take an xAI API key in XAI_API_KEY - X columns fall back to it when TwitterAPI.io is unset. Keyless columns (Reddit, HN, Lobsters, Stack Overflow, DEV.to, Product Hunt, npm, PyPI, crates.io, Hugging Face, arXiv, Mastodon, RSS, Google News, GitHub, China Hot, YouTube channel/playlist, app reviews, wallet transactions, Polymarket, CoinGecko, DeFiLlama, Dexscreener) work out of the box with no keys.

Other launcher subcommands:

./minitor build      # production build
./minitor start      # production server (after build)
./minitor migrate    # run DB migrations only
./minitor doctor     # print environment diagnostics
./minitor reset      # wipe the local PGlite data dir
./minitor help       # full usage

Column types

Category	Columns
Social — X / Reddit / HN / Farcaster / Mastodon (6)	x-search, x-trending, reddit, hacker-news, farcaster, mastodon
GitHub (11)	github-trending, github-releases, github-issues, github-prs, github-commits, github-stars, github-forks, github-search, github-backlinks, github-actions, github-discussions
News & web (10)	google-news, news-search, rss, lobsters, stack-overflow, devto, npm, pypi, crates, producthunt
AI / ML (2)	huggingface (trending models, datasets, spaces), arxiv (CS / stat / math.OC papers)
Long-form & video (3)	substack, youtube, linkedin
Mention monitors (2)	facebook, instagram
Apps & on-chain (7)	apple-reviews, play-reviews, wallet-tx, polymarket, coingecko, defillama, dexscreener
China hot boards (6)	weibo-hot, zhihu-hot, douyin-hot, bilibili-hot, toutiao, baidu-hot

Full plugin manifest: lib/columns/plugins/manifest.ts. Add a new source by copying lib/columns/plugins/_template/ — see lib/columns/README.md for the full contract.

Keys: TWITTER_API_KEY for x-search / x-trending (TwitterAPI.io, preferred). XAI_API_KEY for those same X columns as fallback, plus news-search, linkedin, facebook, instagram (and Substack's keyword-only mode). Optional NEYNAR_API_KEY for Farcaster (demo-key fallback works), optional YOUTUBE_API_KEY for YouTube search (channel / playlist Atom feeds are keyless), optional GITHUB_TOKEN for every github-* column (60 req/hr keyless → 5000 req/hr with a token; github-discussions follows the same rule), optional COINGECKO_DEMO_API_KEY for higher CoinGecko rate limits (keyless mode works fine for low-traffic decks). Everything else runs without keys.

Features

Category	Highlights
Launcher (6)	./minitor (dev), ./minitor build, ./minitor start, ./minitor migrate, ./minitor doctor, ./minitor reset — auto-detects npm / pnpm / yarn / bun, idempotent re-runs
Plugin system (4)	3-file folders (plugin.ts, client.tsx, server.ts), Zod-validated configs, init-time parity check across 3 registries, copy-paste _template/ to add a source
Pagination (3)	Cursor-based { items, nextCursor? } everywhere, 10 items per page, Load more + End of results states; slice helper at lib/columns/paginate.ts for non-cursor sources
Database (4)	PGlite default (zero install), node-postgres for self-hosted, @neondatabase/serverless HTTP driver for Neon, runtime selector by DATABASE_URL
UI (7)	⌘K command palette, @dnd-kit drag-reorder, conic-gradient refresh beam (CSS-only), live-ticking timestamps (1Hz useSyncExternalStore), onboarding flow, missing-key dimming on Add column, full-column loading skeleton
State (3)	zustand + server-action writes, optimistic mutations, no localStorage (every device sees the same state)
Deck portability (5)	Export (copy JSON), import (paste JSON), share link (#deck=… URL fragment), starter templates, and version history — auto-captured snapshots (last 5 per deck) restorable as a new deck from the deck menu

Use cases

• Founder dashboard — your X mentions, Hacker News, Product Hunt RSS, GitHub stars on your repo, App Store reviews, Substack analytics, all on one screen
• Crypto desk — wallet activity across 9 chains, X trending in crypto, Reddit r/cryptocurrency, news search for protocol names
• Open-source maintainer — GitHub trending in your language, new issues / PRs across watched repos, new stargazers + forks, backlinks from HN / Reddit / news for your repo URL
• Journalist — Google News + xAI news search on a topic, paired with X trending and Reddit threads, plus Substack publications you trust
• PM / marketing — Apple + Google Play reviews on your app, Twitter mentions, LinkedIn / Facebook / Instagram mentions, Substack write-ups
• China-watcher — Weibo, Zhihu, Douyin, Bilibili, Toutiao, and Baidu hot boards in one column stack
• Personal radar — RSS for the blogs that matter, Farcaster for the casts that matter, no algorithmic feed in sight

Stack

• Next.js 16 (App Router, Turbopack) + React 19 + TypeScript
• Tailwind v4 + shadcn/ui (base-nova style on @base-ui/react)
• Drizzle ORM with three runtime drivers (PGlite default / node-postgres / @neondatabase/serverless)
• TwitterAPI.io (/twitter/tweet/advanced_search) for X columns, with xAI Agent Tools (x_search + web_search) as the Grok fallback and for News / Web
• zustand for client state with server-action writes
• @dnd-kit for sortable decks + columns
• sonner toasts, cmdk command palette, Instrument Serif + Geist fonts

Pointing at a different database

Set DATABASE_URL in .env.local:

URL form	Driver picked
unset / pglite: / file:	PGlite, persisted to .minitor/pgdata/ (default)
memory:	PGlite, ephemeral in-memory — nothing persists (used by the test suite)
postgres://user:pass@localhost/minitor	node-postgres
postgresql://…@…neon.tech/…?sslmode=require	@neondatabase/serverless HTTP

./minitor migrate and the runtime client honor the same selector (lib/db/client.ts:resolveDatabaseConfig).

Deploy / self-host

Minitor ships as a single Docker image (Dockerfile, output: "standalone") that any container host builds straight from source. It runs migrations on boot, then serves on $PORT (default 3000). Pair it with a Postgres database.

Heads up — Minitor has no per-user auth. Decks and columns are global, so a public URL is a shared, editable dashboard. MINITOR_PASSWORD puts the whole app behind a single-password login page (a signed session cookie, /login, "Log out" in Settings). In a hosted deployment it is required — the image fails closed and serves a lock screen until you set it, so an instance is never accidentally public.

Local / VPS — one command:

MINITOR_PASSWORD=changeme XAI_API_KEY=xai-… docker compose up --build

Brings up Postgres + Minitor, migrates automatically, serves at http://localhost:3000. Data persists in the minitor-pgdata volume.

Railway (or Render / Fly) — one click:

1. New project → Deploy from repo. Railway auto-detects the Dockerfile (railway.json pins the builder + health check).
2. Add a Postgres plugin. Railway exposes its connection string as DATABASE_URL — reference it on the app service.
3. Set MINITOR_PASSWORD (required — the app won't serve without it) and any API keys as service variables, then deploy.

Hosting env vars:

Var	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	postgres://… (compose/Railway) or a Neon URL. Required in hosted mode — memory:/PGlite is ephemeral.
MINITOR_PASSWORD	The login password. Gates the whole app behind a /login page (signed session cookie). Required when hosted — unset in hosted mode fails closed with a lock screen. Unset locally = open (dev default).
MINITOR_HOSTED	Baked to 1 in the image. Disables the in-app key editor; keys come from env vars.
XAI_API_KEY, GITHUB_TOKEN, …	Column API keys, read from the host environment.

The image bakes MINITOR_HOSTED=1, so the Settings dialog is read-only and setEnvKeys is refused server-side — provide keys as environment variables instead. GET /api/health is an unauthenticated liveness probe (excluded from the password gate).

Documentation

Plugin contract	The 3-file plugin pattern + how to add a new column type
lib/columns/types.ts	ColumnUI, ColumnServer, PluginMeta, FeedItem, PageResult, Capabilities
lib/columns/plugins/manifest.ts	Canonical plugin id list — single source of truth
lib/columns/paginate.ts	Slice-based cursor pagination helper for non-cursor sources
lib/db/client.ts	Multi-driver Drizzle client (PGlite / pg / Neon HTTP)
scripts/db-migrate.mjs	The migration runner used by ./minitor migrate

Deployment

• Vercel or any Node host works. Set DATABASE_URL and XAI_API_KEY as env vars.
• @neondatabase/serverless uses the HTTP driver (no websockets in serverless), so Neon's pooled connection string is required.
• app/api/columns/[type]/route.ts is dynamic = "force-dynamic" and maxDuration = 60 for Grok latency.

Security

• .env.local is gitignored — only .env.example ships.
• Server actions call TwitterAPI.io / xAI / Neynar / GitHub server-side; API keys never reach the client.
• The add-column dialog asks the server which env keys are present (boolean only, values never leave the server) to grey out plugins you can't use.
• No auth layer: every browser hitting your deployment sees the same decks. To partition per user, add a user_id column to each table and filter in the server actions.

License

MIT.

Star History

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Built by Aaron Elijah Mars, founder of Aeon and MiroShark · @aaronjmars