Pulse

A news and trend aggregator designed to help you stay informed without the endless scrolling. Subscribe to topics you care about and get a curated feed of recent content from across the web.

Features

• Topic-based subscriptions - Choose what matters to you
• Aggregated feed - Content from multiple sources in one place
• Type-safe API - Full TypeScript type safety between frontend and backend
• Modular ingestion - Easily add new content sources
• Automatic updates - Hourly cron job keeps your feed fresh
• Clean, minimal design - Focus on content, not distractions

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, Vite, TailwindCSS, React Query
• Backend: Node.js, Express, Prisma, PostgreSQL
• Shared: ts-rest for type-safe API contracts
• Ingestion: Modular fetcher system (Reddit, more coming soon)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• PostgreSQL database
• npm or pnpm

Setup

1. Install dependencies

# Root packages
npm install

# Shared package
cd shared && npm install && npm run build

# Backend
cd ../backend && npm install

# Frontend
cd ../frontend && npm install

2. Configure environment

Create .env in backend/:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/pulse"
PORT=4000
NODE_ENV=development

3. Database setup

cd backend
npx prisma migrate dev
npx prisma db seed

4. Run the app

# Backend (from backend/)
npm run dev

# Frontend (from frontend/)
npm run dev

# Cron job (optional, from backend/)
npm run cron

Visit http://localhost:5173 for the frontend and http://localhost:4000 for the API.

Project Structure

pulse/
├── frontend/          # React application
├── backend/           # Express API server
├── shared/            # Shared TypeScript types and API contracts
└── README.md

See individual README files in each directory for more details.

Development

• Backend runs on http://localhost:4000
• Frontend runs on http://localhost:5173
• Hot reload enabled for both

License

MIT