Hackerspace News RSS Feed

Static website that aggregates RSS publications from hackerspaces listed on the hackerspaces wiki.

The project fetches the source list from the Spaces with RSS feeds section on:

• https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/User%3AJomat#Spaces_with_RSS_feeds

The repository also contains additional already-confirmed valid source rows in:

• content/discovered_valid_source_urls.json

It validates candidate feed URLs, parses supported feeds, normalizes the data into local JSON snapshots, and renders a static multi-page site with:

• spaces index
• per-space detail pages
• per-day newspaper pages under /news/

Requirements

• Node.js
• npm

Local Run

Install dependencies:

npm install

Fetch data and build the site:

npm run build

This is the simplest local run and is enough to build the site from the main wiki RSS source list.

If you also want to include the checked-in additional valid sources from content/discovered_valid_source_urls.json, run:

npm run build -- --include-discovery-valid

Start the local HTTP server:

npm start

The local server serves the generated dist/ directory on port 8090 by default.

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:8090

Build Pipeline

The project is split into three commands:

• npm run refresh updates local data snapshots in data/
• npm run render rebuilds dist/ from existing local JSON
• npm run build runs refresh and then render
• npm run refresh -- --include-discovery-valid or npm run build -- --include-discovery-valid also merge in the checked-in additional valid sources from content/discovered_valid_source_urls.json

Use npm run render when you changed only UI or rendering logic and do not need to refresh network data.

Discovery

Discovery is a separate flow based on the broader hackerspace website directory.

Main commands:

npm run discover:feeds
npm run discover:valid-sources

The clean valid-source artifact written by this flow is:

• content/discovered_valid_source_urls.json

It can be merged into refresh or build with:

npm run build -- --include-discovery-valid
npm run refresh -- --include-discovery-valid

Detailed discovery flow documentation:

• docs/DISCOVER_FEEDS.md
• docs/WIKI_DISCOVERY_ANALYSES.md

Production Deployment

This project is intended to be served as static files behind nginx.

The production flow was tested on Ubuntu 24.04.

Typical setup:

1. Point your domain to the server with DNS records.
2. Configure nginx to serve a directory from /var/www/....
3. Build or render the site so that dist/ contains the current static output.
4. Copy dist/ into the directory used by nginx.
5. Reload nginx.

Deploy Script

The repository includes:

• scripts/deploy-site.sh

This script supports three modes:

• default mode: copies the current dist/ to TARGET_DIR and reloads nginx
• render mode: runs npm run render, then copies dist/ to TARGET_DIR, then reloads nginx
• build mode: runs npm run build, then copies dist/ to TARGET_DIR, then reloads nginx

It does not run npm install.

Current target directory defaults to:

/var/www/hackerspace.news

You can change it in the script or override it through the environment:

TARGET_DIR="/var/www/your-site" ./scripts/deploy-site.sh

Typical manual deployment with existing already-built dist/:

./scripts/deploy-site.sh

Typical manual deployment after re-rendering from existing local data snapshots:

./scripts/deploy-site.sh render

Typical manual deployment with fresh data refresh and full rebuild:

./scripts/deploy-site.sh build

systemd Timer

The repository also includes scripts for installing and removing a systemd timer that runs deployment every hour:

• scripts/install-deploy-site-timer.sh
• scripts/uninstall-deploy-site-timer.sh

Install:

./scripts/install-deploy-site-timer.sh

Remove:

./scripts/uninstall-deploy-site-timer.sh

By default, the timer runs once per hour. It executes ./scripts/deploy-site.sh build, refreshes data from the network, rebuilds the static site, copies dist/ to the target directory, and reloads nginx.

The installer creates a systemd service and timer for the current project path and configures the service to run ./scripts/deploy-site.sh build. That means each timer run refreshes data, rebuilds the site, copies dist/ to the target directory, and reloads nginx. The installer also starts the deploy service once immediately to verify that deployment works.

Data Source and Behavior

Source of truth:

• https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/User%3AJomat#Spaces_with_RSS_feeds

Optional additional source rows:

• content/discovered_valid_source_urls.json

Behavioral notes:

• normalized JSON in data/ is the local data layer
• rendering reads only the data that actually exists
• missing fields are omitted from the UI
• feed parsing accounts for RSS, Atom, RDF, missing fields, empty feeds, and non-feed URLs

Project Structure

• src/refreshDataset.js handles ingestion and data snapshot generation
• src/renderSite.js renders static pages from local JSON
• src/cli/refresh.js runs refresh only
• src/cli/render.js runs render only
• src/cli/build.js runs the full pipeline

Testing

Run the test suite:

npm test