Watchboard

• 60+ active trackers across conflicts, disasters, political histories, science, and culture
• Config-driven architecture — each tracker is a tracker.json + data directory; no code changes needed
• AI nightly updates — Claude Code with web search refreshes eligible trackers automatically at 6 AM UTC
• Hourly breaking news scan — 24+ RSS feeds from Reuters, Al Jazeera, France24, SCMP, and more; AI triage classifies events and updates trackers in real time
• Interactive 2D maps — Leaflet with strike arcs, overlay layers (no-fly zones, GPS jamming, earthquakes), live flights, and day/night terminator
• 3D globe visualization — CesiumJS with missile animations, satellite tracking, cinematic event mode, and live ship AIS data
• Full-text search — Pagefind indexes all 190+ pages at build time; zero runtime overhead
• Source tier system — every data point classified Tier 1–4 (official → unverified); contested claims explicitly flagged
• One-command tracker creation — GitHub Actions init-tracker.yml generates a fully populated tracker in ~25 minutes via Claude Code
• Embeddable widgets — each tracker has a /embed/{slug}/ page (~4 KB, theme-aware) for third-party embedding
• Public JSON API — static REST API with CORS, no auth required; powers third-party integrations
• MCP server — Model Context Protocol integration for AI agents
• Push notifications — subscribe to specific trackers for breaking news and daily digest browser notifications

Watchboard data is available through multiple channels beyond the web dashboard:

Free, no authentication required. Static JSON files served from CDN with full CORS support.

📖 API Documentation

Model Context Protocol server for AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, etc.). Provides 7 tools and 3 resources for querying tracker data programmatically.

git clone https://github.com/ArtemioPadilla/watchboard.git
cd watchboard/mcp
npm install
npm start

📖 MCP Documentation

Automated breaking news channel with real-time updates from the hourly pipeline. Join @watchboard_dev.

Automated social posting — breaking news, daily digests, and analysis threads. Follow @watchboard.bsky.social.

Weekly digest summarizing the most significant events across all active trackers. Subscribe at watchboard.dev/newsletter.

git clone https://github.com/ArtemioPadilla/watchboard.git
cd watchboard
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:4321/watchboard/.

npm run build    # Type-check + build static site to dist/
npm run preview  # Preview production build locally

Each tracker is a self-contained directory under trackers/:

trackers/{slug}/
  tracker.json          # Config: name, sections, map bounds, AI prompts, categories
  data/
    meta.json           # Title, day count, last updated
    kpis.json           # Key performance indicators strip
    timeline.json       # Historical eras + crisis timeline
    map-points.json     # Geographic points of interest
    map-lines.json      # Strike arcs, supply routes, frontlines
    casualties.json     # Casualty table with tier/contested flags
    political.json      # Political figures grid
    ...                 # Other section-specific data files
    events/             # Daily partitioned event files (YYYY-MM-DD.json)

At build time, src/lib/tracker-registry.ts auto-discovers all non-draft trackers and src/pages/[tracker]/index.astro generates a page for each one via getStaticPaths().

1. Go to Actions > Initialize New Tracker
2. Enter: slug, topic description, start date, geographic region
3. Claude Code generates tracker.json + empty data files, validates schema, builds
4. Auto-triggers Seed Tracker Data to backfill historical data with deep web research
5. Result: a fully populated, deployed tracker

Every data point carries a source classification:

Contested figures are explicitly flagged with 'yes', 'evolving', 'heavily', or 'partial'.

A 30-second vertical (1080×1920) video summarising the top breaking trackers ships every day to Telegram + Bluesky. Built with Remotion — code-driven video, hot-reload editor, programmatic rendering.

make video-prep   # Pull latest news + bundle thumbnails for the Studio preview
make video        # Open Remotion Studio (timeline editor, like After Effects but code-driven)
make video-render # Render today's MP4 → video/output/

The Studio at http://localhost:3000 exposes every typography, position, color, and animation value as live-editable sliders/colour pickers via the right-hand "Props" panel. Tunable trees:

• slideStyle — TrackerSlide elements (image card, headline, KPI block, source row)
• introStyle — opening logo + subtitle + date animation
• outroStyle — watchboard.dev card + stats line + fade-out

Edits in the panel are transient (preview only). To persist, copy the values to DEFAULT_*_STYLE constants in video/src/data/slide-style.ts — both Studio and the production renderer read from there.

Daily brief archive: /videos lists every shipped video with its trackers, headlines, KPIs, and source tiers.

For static layout iteration without the Studio, open tools/video-editor.html — a vanilla-JS mockup of the TrackerSlide layout with the same control panel.

Data is automatically refreshed at 6 AM UTC via GitHub Actions. Each tracker has a configurable updateIntervalDays — active conflicts update daily; historical cases update every 30–180 days. The workflow resolves which trackers are due, then uses Claude Code with web search to update each one.

All data workflows use claude-code-action with a Claude Max subscription OAuth token (CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN) — no per-token API costs.

Two scheduled scans cover breaking news end-to-end:

Light scan (every 15 min, no LLM cost): polls a curated set of high-signal wires (Reuters, BBC, AP top-stories, GDELT) plus public real-time sources (Bluesky firehose for select OSINT/news accounts, Telegram public channels). Scores each candidate against active trackers via deterministic keyword matching (src/lib/keyword-match.ts). Score ≥ 0.85 → posts to Telegram and queues to public/_hourly/pending-candidates.json so the next heavy scan promotes it to AI triage and writes the tracker event. Score 0.5–0.85 → queue only. Score < 0.5 → discards to the audit log. Telegram is the realtime alert channel; only the heavy scan writes tracker JSON.

Heavy scan (every 6 h, Claude Sonnet triage): polls the wider RSS list (24+ sources) plus per-tracker dynamic feeds (src/lib/tracker-feeds.ts — adding a Mexican tracker auto-pulls Animal Político / La Jornada / El Universal / Aristegui; an Indian tracker auto-pulls The Hindu / Indian Express / Times of India; etc.) plus the same realtime sources. Reads pending-candidates.json from light scans and merges. Sonnet classifies each: update / new_tracker_suggestion / discard. Every decision is appended to public/_hourly/triage-log.json.

Audit page (/breaking-news-audit/): public dashboard showing every triage decision in the last 14 days with filters by decision / scan type / score. Use this to spot rejected candidates that should have been accepted and tune thresholds.

1. Fork this repo
2. Go to Settings > Pages — set source to GitHub Actions
3. Go to Settings > Secrets > Actions — add CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN
   • Generate via claude setup-token with a Claude Max subscription
4. Push to main — the site deploys automatically; nightly updates start the next day

# Update all trackers
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... npm run update-data

# Update a specific tracker
TRACKER_SLUG=iran-conflict ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... npm run update-data

watchboard/
├── trackers/                          # One directory per tracker
│   ├── iran-conflict/
│   │   ├── tracker.json               # Config: sections, map, AI prompts
│   │   └── data/                      # JSON data + events/ partitions
│   └── ...                            # 60+ more trackers
├── src/
│   ├── pages/
│   │   ├── index.astro                # Home: tracker card index
│   │   ├── search.astro               # Pagefind full-text search
│   │   ├── rss.xml.ts                 # Global RSS feed
│   │   ├── embed/[tracker].astro      # Embeddable widget pages
│   │   └── [tracker]/                 # Dynamic routes per tracker
│   │       ├── index.astro            # Dashboard
│   │       ├── globe.astro            # 3D globe (if enabled)
│   │       ├── about.astro            # About page
│   │       └── rss.xml.ts             # Per-tracker RSS feed
│   ├── layouts/BaseLayout.astro       # HTML shell, SEO, fonts
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── static/                    # Server-rendered (zero client JS)
│   │   │   ├── Header.astro
│   │   │   ├── Hero.astro
│   │   │   ├── KpiStrip.astro
│   │   │   ├── CasualtyTable.astro
│   │   │   ├── PoliticalGrid.astro
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   └── islands/                   # Client-hydrated React components
│   │       ├── IntelMap.tsx           # Leaflet 2D map
│   │       ├── TimelineSection.tsx    # Click-to-expand timeline
│   │       ├── MilitaryTabs.tsx       # Tabbed military view
│   │       └── CesiumGlobe/           # 3D globe + hooks
│   ├── lib/
│   │   ├── tracker-config.ts          # TrackerConfigSchema (Zod) + types
│   │   ├── tracker-registry.ts        # Auto-discovers all trackers
│   │   ├── data.ts                    # loadTrackerData(slug)
│   │   ├── schemas.ts                 # All data Zod schemas (16 schemas)
│   │   └── ...                        # Utilities (map, tier, timeline)
│   └── styles/global.css              # Dark theme, CSS custom properties
├── scripts/
│   ├── update-data.ts                 # AI nightly updater (multi-tracker)
│   ├── hourly-scan.ts                 # RSS polling + candidate extraction
│   ├── hourly-triage.ts               # AI classification of news candidates
│   └── hourly-post.ts                 # Breaking news social posting
├── .github/workflows/
│   ├── deploy.yml                     # Build + deploy to GitHub Pages
│   ├── update-data.yml                # Nightly AI data refresh
│   ├── init-tracker.yml               # One-command tracker creation
│   └── seed-tracker.yml               # Historical data backfill
└── package.json

Contributions are welcome. The most impactful ways to contribute:

• Request a new tracker topic — open an issue with the topic, region, and start date
• Report a data error — incorrect facts, wrong source tier, missing events
• Suggest a feature — new section types, map layers, visualization ideas
• Submit a PR — fix a bug, improve documentation, or add a missing data point

For code contributions, run npm run build to verify the TypeScript compiles and all tracker schemas validate before opening a PR.

This platform aggregates publicly available information from multiple sources and perspectives. It does not endorse any particular political position or narrative. All contested claims are explicitly marked. Source tier classifications reflect general reliability categories, not endorsements of specific reporting or outlets.

MIT — use freely, attribute if you'd like.