Typewriter

I hate WordPress.

So I just wrote my own bare-bones CMS.

Installation

Typewriter expects you to have a MongoDB instance running somewhere (I keep mine at a free tier cluster in MongoDB Atlas)

1. Clone this repo where you'd like to run it from
2. npm i or pnpm i
3. Set the MONGODB_URL (for data) and BLOG_URL (for CORS) environment variables (.env file at the root)
4. npm start

Authentication

I opted for a (relatively) simple no-password method for authentication which follows an unusual approach, which combines an allowlist with TOTP.

All you need to do is create entries on the allowlist collection in the following format

{
  "_id": "john@example.com",
  "isRegistered": false
}

And send a POST request to /auth/signup with the following data

{
  "email": "john@example.com"
}

To recieve the secret code used to configure your preferred TOTP generator, like Google Authenticator. It uses standard configuration (30 second steps and 6 digit long codes)

You may invoke the /auth/signup endpoint manually and get the secret that way, or plug it into some frontend code and generate a QR Code from it.

Usage

Typewriter's interface with the world is a REST API, which provides basic blogkeeping funcionality (create posts, get posts, etc)

GET /post - Get all posts

Returns a listing of the title, creation timestamp, author and title of all posts in a paginated fashion

Control results using the page and limit (default is 10) query parameters.

POST /post - Create post (Auth needed)

Creates a new post and stores it in the database.

Payload

{
  "title": "My awesome post",
  "author": "John Smith",
  "post": "*This is some good stuff*"
}

GET /post/count - Count posts

Returns how many posts there are in your blog

GET /post/latest - Get latest post ID

Returns the ID for the latest post

GET /post/first - Get first post ID

Returns the ID for the first post ever made. Ever.

GET /post/random - Get random post ID

Returns the ID for a random post

GET /post/:id - Get post by ID

Pretty straightforward.

This is useful for accessing posts directly, using permalinks.

PATCH /post/:id - Update post (Auth needed)

Updates the specified post

Payload

{
  "title": "New Title!! (Now with 100% more examples!)"
}

DELETE /post/:id - Delete post (Auth needed)

Deletes the specified post

GET /post/:id/next - Get next post ID

• Tomorrow's post (You'll get the ID for this post)
• Today's post (You are here)
• Yesterday's post

GET /post/:id/prev - Get previous post ID

• Tomorrow's post
• Today's post (You are here)
• Yesterday's post (You'll get the ID for this post)