explain i'm five

A simple website for explaining anything in plain language — paste a topic, URL, YouTube video, or image and get an explanation anyone can understand.

What it does

Paste any topic, URL, YouTube video, or image and get a clear explanation that anyone can understand. Results are shareable via URL.

Setup

# Install dependencies
bun install

# Set up environment
cp .env.example .env
# Add your environment variables

# Run database migrations
bun db:migrate

# Start dev server
bun dev

Environment Variables

See .env.example for the full list with inline notes. Summary:

Variable	Required	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	Yes	PostgreSQL connection string
PUBLIC_BASE_URL	Yes	Public base URL (auth callbacks, share links, OG tags)
AUTH_SECRET	Yes	better-auth session signing secret (openssl rand -base64 32)
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID	Yes	Google OAuth sign-in
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	Yes	Google OAuth sign-in
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	Yes	AI generation
POLAR_ACCESS_TOKEN	Yes*	Polar organization access token
POLAR_ENVIRONMENT	Yes*	sandbox or production
POLAR_PRODUCT_ID_MONTHLY	Yes*	Product ID for the monthly Pro plan
POLAR_PRODUCT_ID_YEARLY	Yes*	Product ID for the yearly Pro plan
POLAR_WEBHOOK_SECRET	Yes*	Polar webhook signing secret
PARALLEL_API_KEY	No	Webpage content extraction (URLs work without it)
REDIS_URL	No	Resumable streams shared between users

* Required for checkout and subscriptions (the Polar integration).

External services

• Google OAuth — create credentials in the Google Cloud Console. Add <PUBLIC_BASE_URL>/api/auth/callback/google as an authorized redirect URI.
• OpenRouter — API key from openrouter.ai/keys.
• Polar — access token, two products (monthly/yearly), and a webhook pointed at <PUBLIC_BASE_URL>/api/auth/polar/webhooks. Use sandbox.polar.sh with POLAR_ENVIRONMENT=sandbox for local development.
• Parallel (optional) — API key from parallel.ai for pre-fetching webpage content.

Scripts

Command	Description
bun dev	Start development server
bun build	Build for production
bun db:generate	Generate database migrations
bun db:migrate	Run database migrations

Stack

SvelteKit, Bun, PostgreSQL, Drizzle, better-auth (Google OAuth), Polar (payments), OpenRouter (Gemini), Tailwind, shadcn-svelte