OutbreakTinder

A curiosity toolkit for historical public-health events.
Swipe. Compare. Explore. Cite. Free, open-source, primary-source-only.

➜ TRY THE LIVE DEMO  ·  ➜ READ THE DATASET  ·  ➜ EMBED IT  ·  ➜ CITE IT

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🎬 See it in 8 seconds

_{Card stack with peek depth · spring-physics drag · liquid-glass surface · memorial-mode toggle}

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💡 Why this exists

Search "1918 flu R₀" and you land on an ad-laden listicle. Search "Spanish flu mortality" and an LLM hallucinates the answer.

Public-health history deserves a better front door. OutbreakTinder takes the curated record of historic public-health events and presents it as a swipe deck — fast, mobile-first, accessible by default, free forever, and with every fact linked to a primary archive.

It's a marketing platform for the truth, dressed in a UI that makes you actually want to scroll.

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✨ What you get

🃏	Swipe-deck UX — 3D card stack, spring-physics drag, liquid-glass surface, memorial-mode toggle
📚	Primary-source citations — every fact links to CDC, NIH, WHO, NARA, or peer-reviewed literature
🎯	Stable URLs forever — every entry has a permalink that never moves: /outbreak/<slug>
📦	Open dataset, three mirrors — GitHub repo · CORS-open API · Hugging Face Datasets
♿	Accessible by default — keyboard navigation, screen-reader memorial narration, axe-clean, reduced-motion respected
📱	PWA + offline — installable, works fully offline after first load
🔒	Sensitivity-passed — every entry reviewed against docs/SENSITIVITY.md before merge
💸	$0/month — no paid hosting, no paid analytics, no LLM-generated content, no trackers
🤝	Embed-friendly — drop it in Substack, Ghost, WordPress with one <iframe>

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🚀 Try it

Surface	URL
Live app	outbreaktinder.pages.dev
GitHub Pages landing	byteworthyllc.github.io/outbreaktinder
Public dataset (CORS open)	outbreaktinder.pages.dev/api/outbreaks.json
Hugging Face mirror	huggingface.co/datasets/outbreaktinder/dataset
RSS	outbreaktinder.pages.dev/feed.xml
llms.txt	outbreaktinder.pages.dev/llms.txt

_{Scan from your phone}

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🧱 Embed it

Paste this into Substack, Ghost, WordPress, or any HTML-aware editor:

<iframe
  src="https://outbreaktinder.pages.dev/"
  title="OutbreakTinder — historic public-health events"
  loading="lazy"
  width="100%" height="720"
  style="border:0;border-radius:24px;max-width:480px"
  allow="fullscreen"></iframe>

Or fetch the dataset directly. Three CDN URLs, pick the one your stack already trusts:

// 1. Cloudflare Pages — primary, CORS open
const res = await fetch('https://outbreaktinder.pages.dev/api/outbreaks.json');

// 2. JSDelivr — fast global CDN backed by GitHub raw, immutable per-tag
const res = await fetch('https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/ByteWorthyLLC/outbreaktinder@main/data/outbreaks.json');

// 3. Hugging Face Datasets — versioned, indexed by LLM citation tools
const res = await fetch('https://huggingface.co/datasets/outbreaktinder/dataset/resolve/main/outbreaks.json');

const entries = await res.json();

For TypeScript users, the canonical Zod schema is src/schemas/outbreak.ts — copy it into your project to get type-safe parsing for free.

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🆚 Alternatives

	OutbreakTinder	Wikipedia "List of epidemics"	Our World in Data	CDC PHIL
Mobile-first interactive UX	✅	❌	⚠️ chart-only	❌
Primary-source citation per fact	✅	⚠️	✅	✅
Open dataset (CC0)	✅	⚠️ CC-BY-SA	✅ CC-BY	⚠️ image-only
Embed-friendly (<iframe>)	✅	❌	⚠️ chart embeds	❌
PWA / works offline	✅	❌	❌	❌
Editorial sensitivity rubric	✅	❌	❌	n/a
LLM-citable (Hugging Face mirror)	✅	❌	❌	❌
$0/month operationally	✅	n/a	n/a	n/a
No LLM-generated content	✅	✅	✅	✅
Citation file (CITATION.cff)	✅	❌	⚠️ paper-only	❌

We love every one of these projects — they are our sources. OutbreakTinder is the interactive front door on top of them.

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🛠️ Tech stack

Astro 6 + Preact island (one client:load island, every other page is pure SSG)
@use-gesture/vanilla v10  ──  drag gesture (~3 KB)
popmotion spring          ──  spring(stiffness=170, damping=22)
@preact/signals           ──  reactive deck index, drag offset, memorial mode
zod                       ──  runtime dataset validation
@vite-pwa/astro           ──  manifest + Workbox service worker
satori + sharp            ──  build-time OG card PNGs (Phase 6.5)
TypeScript strictest      ──  noUncheckedIndexedAccess + exact optional props

Performance budget: < 30 KB gzipped JS shell, < 20 KB gzipped CSS. Enforced in CI by size-limit.

Hosting: Cloudflare Pages (static, free tier). $0/month operational ceiling.

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🛠️ For developers

git clone https://github.com/ByteWorthyLLC/outbreaktinder.git
cd outbreaktinder
npm install
npm run dev      # dev server at http://localhost:4321
npm test         # vitest
npm run lint     # eslint + prettier + stylelint
npm run typecheck
npm run build    # static output to dist/

Architecture: see docs/SCHEMA.md, docs/adr/, and the inline comments on src/components/Deck.tsx.

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🩺 For contributors

We welcome bug fixes, accessibility improvements, dataset additions, and editorial review.

• Open an Add a Dataset Entry issue first
• Read docs/SENSITIVITY.md before drafting content
• Read docs/ADD_AN_OUTBREAK.md for the full template
• Sign your commits: git commit -s (DCO required)
• See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full workflow

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📰 For educators and journalists

• Free embed — <iframe> snippet above, no paywall
• Open dataset — CC0, fork it, remix it, no attribution required
• Primary sources — every entry has citations linking to CDC/NIH/WHO/NARA/PubMed
• Citation-ready — CITATION.cff gives you BibTeX, APA, and Chicago in one click
• Hugging Face mirror — appears in academic search and LLM citation indexes

Press inquiries: Richardskef@gmail.com

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📈 Made with OutbreakTinder

Reserved space for "made with" showcase — link back when you embed the deck or fork the dataset and we'll list you here.

Add yours →

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📰 Press & mentions

Will populate as coverage lands.

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🧠 Methodology + sensitivity

We follow current WHO/CDC guidance on disease naming, never use stigmatizing place-based names, name affected communities rather than erasing them, and never publish LLM-generated content.

• docs/METHODOLOGY.md — selection criteria, sourcing tiers, review cadence
• docs/SENSITIVITY.md — editorial principles, tone matrix, naming conventions
• docs/SOURCES.md — bibliography of primary archives
• docs/SCHEMA.md — field-by-field reference for data/outbreaks.json
• docs/adr/ — Architecture Decision Records

Editorial review SLA: 48 hours. File an Editorial Review Request anytime.

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❤️ Sponsor

OutbreakTinder runs on $0/month — Cloudflare Pages free tier, no paid analytics, no LLM costs. Optional support funds editorial reviewer honoraria, a custom domain, and commissioned line-art illustrations for entries where archive imagery is missing.

Tier	What you get
$5 / one-time	"Add an Outbreak" — your name in the contributors list
$25 / one-time	"Editorial Reviewer" — credited on the next release
$100 / month	"Patron" — pinned in README + monthly progress note

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📜 License & citation

• Code: MIT
• Dataset: CC0 1.0 Universal
• Imagery: per-image license recorded in each record (public-domain / cc0 / cc-by / cc-by-sa)

@software{richards_outbreaktinder_2026,
  author = {Richards, Kevin and {OutbreakTinder Contributors}},
  title = {OutbreakTinder: an interactive educational tool for historic public-health events},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/ByteWorthyLLC/outbreaktinder},
  license = {MIT},
}

GitHub's "Cite this repository" button reads CITATION.cff directly — one click for APA, BibTeX, or Chicago format.

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🗺️ Roadmap

See .planning/ROADMAP.md for the seven-phase plan and .planning/STATE.md for current status.

Phase	Status
1 — Foundation + OSS Scaffolding	✅
2 — Content Seed + Editorial Rubric	✅
3 — Content Scale-Out	🚧 ongoing via PR
4 — Swipe Deck + Vibe + A11y	✅
5 — GitHub-as-marketing + dataset distribution	✅
6 — PWA + Share + Perf + Deploy	✅
7 — Launch + Community + Post-Launch Ops	🚧

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⭐ Star history

If you find OutbreakTinder useful, star the repo — it's the single biggest signal that pulls more contributors in.

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💖 Sponsors

_{Sponsor wall regenerated on each release from gh api /users/byteworthy/sponsors. Become a sponsor →}

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🤝 Contributors

This project follows the all-contributors specification. After your first merged PR, a maintainer adds you here.

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_{Built with care · MIT licensed · CC0 dataset · Public-domain imagery · No trackers · No LLMs · 100% open}

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