When.org

An open calendar of everything happening. when.org

When.org is an open-source feed layer for local events. The atomic unit is a calendar with an owner: a curator who knows every jazz room in New York publishes when.org/nyc-jazz, and you subscribe to it the way you'd subscribe to a newsletter. Every calendar is simultaneously:

• a web page anyone can visit and share (with schema.org/Event markup),
• an ICS feed you can subscribe to in Apple or Google Calendar,
• a JSON API for apps, researchers — and your personal AI,
• an email digest for subscribers who want one.

Think of it as a Substack for calendars. The When.org platform is free, but curators can sell calendar subscriptions, tickets, tips. Calendars can be free or, if high-quality enough, paid. Reading, publishing, and subscribing never cost anything. That's the .org promise.

Launching local-first: New York City first, New Orleans next.

From the founder of When.com (1998, acquired by AOL in 1999) — click "When.com" in the footer of when.org for that story — rebooted as open infrastructure.

Live right now

• when.org — landing page, manifesto, waitlist, and the When.com history
• when.org/teds-nyc — Ted's NYC, the first curated calendar: ~26 real events across the next 7 days, week/day views, real venue/press photos (never AI-generated imagery)
• when.org/teds-nyc.ics — its live ICS feed; subscribe once in Apple or Google Calendar and each week's picks arrive automatically
• when.org/data/teds-nyc.json — the same calendar as JSON

What's in this repo

Phase 0: the landing page, the waitlist, the first curated calendar, passwordless auth scaffolding, and the When.com history modal.

public/                          static site (hand-written HTML/CSS, no build step)
public/index.html                landing page + waitlist + history modal + menu
public/teds-nyc.html             first curated calendar (week/day views)
public/data/teds-nyc.json        the calendar's event data (single source of truth)
public/history/                  When.com artifacts (1999 homepage, original logo)
public/fonts/                    Satoshi (self-hosted)
functions/teds-nyc.ics.js        builds the ICS feed from the same JSON
functions/api/waitlist.js        waitlist storage (Cloudflare KV)
functions/api/auth/              sign-in: Google OAuth + magic email links
functions/api/me.js              session check for the signed-in menu
functions/_lib/session.js        signed-cookie sessions (HMAC, Web Crypto)
docs/                            operational notes (DNS snapshots etc.)

• POST /api/waitlist stores signups (email, role, city) in Cloudflare KV, deduped by email, with a honeypot field for bots.
• GET /api/waitlist?key=<admin key> lists signups; the key lives in the Pages project environment (WAITLIST_ADMIN_KEY), never in this repo.
• Sign-in is passwordless: Google (identity scopes only) or a magic email link. Sessions are signed cookies (SESSION_SECRET); magic-link tokens live in KV with a 15-minute TTL. Secrets stay in the Pages project env.
• Anonymous-first: browsing, feeds, and ICS subscriptions never require an account. Signing in exists only to save things — following calendars, favorites — and sync them across devices.

The full platform (calendar creation, events, venues, Stripe Connect payouts) comes next; see the roadmap below.

Design rules

• Hand-written HTML/CSS, no framework, no build step.
• Real images only — venue photos, show posters, press shots. Never AI-generated imagery. Events without a good real photo get typographic color-block cards instead.
• In prose the product is always called When.org (the 1998-99 company is "When.com"). The repo keeps the short name.

Running it yourself

The site is a static folder plus Cloudflare Pages Functions:

npm install -g wrangler
wrangler kv namespace create WHEN_WAITLIST   # put the id in wrangler.toml
wrangler kv namespace create WHEN_AUTH       # ditto
wrangler pages dev public                    # local dev
wrangler pages deploy public --project-name <your-project>

Set WAITLIST_ADMIN_KEY as a secret/environment variable on the Pages project to enable the admin listing. For sign-in, also set SESSION_SECRET (any long random string) and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET (pair it with your own Google OAuth web client — set the client ID in functions/api/auth/google.js and add https://<your-domain>/api/auth/google/callback as an authorized redirect URI), and optionally RESEND_API_KEY for magic-link emails.

Self-hosting the platform

When.org is AGPL-3.0. When the core engine lands, anyone will be able to run a When.org instance for their own town, campus, or scene, the same way you can self-host Ghost or Mastodon. when.org is the flagship hosted instance, not the only one. Data out is sacred: ICS + JSON + schema.org markup on every page, no lock-in, ever.

Roadmap

• Phase 0 (now): manifesto, waitlist, the first hand-curated NYC calendar with a live ICS feed, passwordless sign-in.
• Phase 1: the event browser grows up — fun, image-forward day/week/month views; more curated NYC calendars; automated supply (venue scrapers and ICS importers) so calendars refresh nightly; in-place editing for calendar owners.
• Phase 2: calendars for everyone — create your own ("Your NYC"), follow calendars, and subscribe to a bundle: one merged personal ICS feed, a clean JSON API, and an endpoint your personal AI can query for recommendations.
• Phase 3: money. Stripe Connect: paid calendar subscriptions, native ticketing (~1% platform fee), tips. Then New Orleans.

License

AGPL-3.0