Systems Thinking Blog

Auto-publishing blog for systems thinking research, synthesis, and writing. Every Thursday, AI researches a topic, synthesizes findings, writes an article, and creates workshop materials.

Features

• 🤖 Fully automated content generation using Claude API
• 📅 Weekly publishing via Vercel Cron (every Thursday at 10am UTC)
• 📝 4-step workflow: Research → Synthesis → Article → Workshop
• 🎨 Clean, minimal blog interface
• 📁 File-based storage (no database)

Setup

1. Clone and install:

   npm install

2. Configure environment variables: Copy .env.local.example to .env.local and add:

   ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here
   VERCEL_CRON_SECRET=your-random-secret-here
   

3. Run locally:

   npm run dev

4. Test workflow: Visit http://localhost:3000/api/test/workflow?topic=your-test-topic to trigger a test run.

Deployment

1. Push to GitHub
2. Import to Vercel
3. Add environment variables in Vercel dashboard
4. Deploy

The cron job will automatically run every Thursday.

Structure

/app
  /api/cron/thursday    - Cron endpoint
  /api/test/workflow    - Testing endpoint
  /article/[slug]       - Article pages
  page.tsx              - Homepage

/lib
  claude.ts             - Claude API client
  content.ts            - File utilities
  workflow.ts           - Main workflow engine

/content
  topics.txt            - Topic list
  state.json            - Current topic index
  /published            - Generated articles

Manual Trigger

To manually trigger the weekly workflow:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/cron/thursday \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_VERCEL_CRON_SECRET"

Adding Topics

Edit content/topics.txt and add one topic per line.

Tech Stack

• Next.js 15 (App Router)
• TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS
• Claude API (Anthropic SDK)
• Vercel (hosting + cron)

Total lines of code: ~450 (excluding node_modules)