Monitor the current thing. Your dashboard for the internet. Build a deck, pack it with columns, refresh on demand. Each column is a plugin: X, Bluesky, Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters, GitHub (trending / issues / PRs / stars / forks / backlinks / search / releases), Farcaster, Mastodon, YouTube, RSS, Google News, Bing, Substack, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Apple + Google Play reviews, on-chain wallet activity, and the six biggest Chinese platforms (Weibo / Zhihu / Douyin / Bilibili / Toutiao / Baidu).
- You name a deck. Minitor packs it with whatever you're watching.
- 34 column types out of the box — social feeds, news, GitHub, app reviews, on-chain transactions, Chinese hot boards.
- Refresh per column or auto-fetch on creation. Load more pages 10 at a time.
- ⌘K command palette over every deck, column, and action. Drag to reorder.
- Local-first by default — embedded PGlite, no Postgres install needed.
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/aaronjmars/minitor.git && cd minitor
./minitorThe 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 Grok / X / News / Web / Farcaster columns, paste your xAI API key into XAI_API_KEY in .env.local. Keyless columns (Reddit, HN, RSS, Google News, Bing, GitHub, China Hot, YouTube channel/playlist, app reviews, wallet transactions) 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| Category | Columns |
|---|---|
| Social — X / Bluesky / Reddit / HN / Farcaster / Mastodon (7) | x-search, x-trending, bluesky, reddit, hacker-news, farcaster, mastodon |
| GitHub (8) | github-trending, github-releases, github-issues, github-prs, github-stars, github-forks, github-search, github-backlinks |
| News & web (5) | bing (Web search), google-news, news-search, rss, lobsters |
| Long-form & video (3) | substack, youtube, linkedin |
| Mention monitors (2) | facebook, instagram |
| Apps & on-chain (3) | apple-reviews, play-reviews, wallet-tx |
| 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: XAI_API_KEY for x-*, 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). Everything else runs without keys.
| 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) |
- 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 + Bing + 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
- Next.js 16 (App Router, Turbopack) + React 19 + TypeScript
- Tailwind v4 + shadcn/ui (
base-novastyle on@base-ui/react) - Drizzle ORM with three runtime drivers (PGlite default / node-postgres /
@neondatabase/serverless) - xAI Agent Tools API (
/v1/responseswithx_search+web_search) — Grok-powered search backbone - zustand for client state with server-action writes
- @dnd-kit for sortable decks + columns
- sonner toasts, cmdk command palette, Instrument Serif + Geist fonts
Set DATABASE_URL in .env.local:
| URL form | Driver picked |
|---|---|
unset / pglite: / file: / memory: |
PGlite (file at .minitor/pgdata/) |
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).
| 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 |
- Vercel or any Node host works. Set
DATABASE_URLandXAI_API_KEYas env vars. @neondatabase/serverlessuses the HTTP driver (no websockets in serverless), so Neon's pooled connection string is required.app/api/columns/[type]/route.tsisdynamic = "force-dynamic"andmaxDuration = 60for Grok latency.
.env.localis gitignored — only.env.exampleships.- Server actions call 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_idcolumn to each table and filter in the server actions.
MIT.