Make a staticman app instead of staticmanapp to avoid reaching quotas

[robinmetral]

The public instance of Staticman is in trouble: API calls are now regularly hitting the Github quotas of 5000 hits per hour per user.

The issue is that every comment on any site using this instance is going through the staticmanapp user, therefore staticmanapp easily reaches its API quotas.

This causes the problems that have been repeatedly mentioned in #227, #222, or #242 for example.

I got in touch with the Github staff about this and here's their recommendation:

instead of using a single account to make all those requests, you should build an app so that your users can authorize/install the app. That way, the rate limits will scale much better -- for OAuth Apps, each user has their own quota and for GitHub Apps each installation has its own quota. So, your total rate limit would scale with the number of users instead of being static, which is what you want -- you want the limits to grow with your userbase.

@eduardoboucas you know your software - would this be possible?

[gourav]

@robinmetral
I am in process of creating an GitHub app that tries to work as staticman. It is still in development and is in a private repository. I can extend invitation if you want to look or contribute.

I expect it to be completed by end of this month.

[robinmetral]

Good to hear @Erised!
Let me know when it's ready, I can help with testing 🙂

[gourav]

@robinmetral Sure. I will let you know.

[casually-creative]

Just a friendly wake-up call to @eduardoboucas. Staticman is awesome, but right now, it's hitting its limits and people are developing alternatives. Please find the time to develop a solution so we can continue using this fantastic app without this very annoying limitation.

[eduardoboucas]

Hi everyone. I'm sorry that some people are frustrated with the project, I can relate to that. But please remember that the code is fully open-source, which means anyone can simply run their own instance, with their own GitHub account, and bypass all these limitations. The issue we're seeing here is really a problem with the free, public instance I decided to host for everyone. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best of ideas, because it puts pressure on me to be the sole gatekeeper of this service.

I've not abandoned the project and I'm thinking of solutions to solve both problems: the problem that a single GitHub account acting on behalf of everyone isn't maintainable, and the problem that in the current scheme of things, where the public instance that I run is the centrepiece of the project, I represent a bottleneck.

For example, I'm keen on the idea of rebuilding Staticman as a Netlify function, so that effectively everyone is running their own instance (for free) rather than relying on a centralised service (which I'm covering the costs for). In this scenario, people would provide access to their own GitHub account, which commits would be made from, thus removing the issue of quota limits.

All I can say is that your patience is much appreciated and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on how we can make this more manageable for everyone.

[gourav]

@eduardoboucas The best solution in my opinion, would simply be a GitHub app.
GitHub Apps also have their call limits, but they have this per installation.

If repo A & repo B, install an app on their repos, each gets 5k hits per hour.
I have already started working on this, I will present it here when it is prsentable.

Till then, I am also open to any discussion that how we can make it work for everybody.

[robinmetral]

Thanks for the updates @eduardoboucas ! 🙌

A Netlify function would be great as a simpler solution to people wanting to self-host their instance.

However one of the things I love with Staticman is how simple it is to set it up only using a Github repo!

I think that many people would benefit from such a "centralized" service, be it for testing or to allow comments on small websites and blogs (GH pages for example), where setting up Netlify+AWS Lamba to run a self-hosted instance seems like a lot of trouble.

In this case a Github app would probably be the best solution! @Erised can you consider making your working repo public so that we can take a look and maybe contribute? 🙂

[gourav]

@robinmetral Please give me a day or two.

I want to finish a few tasks by myself.
I don't want myself to be an embarrasment as this is my first project.
I just need it to be presentable with a few features. Then, i will work on it with everyone.

[eduardoboucas]

I don't want myself to be an embarrasment as this is my first project.

No reason to feel embarrassed at all! We all appreciate the effort you're putting in. Whenever you feel comfortable showing your code, I'm happy to review and help you change anything that needs tweaking.

[gourav]

@eduardoboucas Thank you. It means a great deal. I am looking over staticman's code all the time to see how everything works.
I am sure will let you know.

[maciek134]

@Erised if you need any help I'd be happy to assist as well.

[casually-creative]

Thanks for your reply @eduardoboucas. Staticman running in a netlify function sounds like a very good idea. I'm looking forward to you testing this out and, if found feasible, giving us feedback on how to set it up for ourselves. Keep up the good work :D