Marx

A personal bookmark manager with tag filtering, backed by SQLite. Publicly readable, password-protected for edits.

Live demo

Marx is a single-file Val Town HTTP val. Everything — routing, auth, database queries, and HTML rendering — lives in main.ts.

Storage: Uses Val Town's built-in SQLite via std/sqlite. Three tables:

• bookmarks — stores URL, title, description, and save date
• tags — unique tag names
• bookmark_tags — many-to-many join table

Auth: A single password set via an environment variable. On login, the password is hashed with SHA-256 to produce a session token, which is stored as an HttpOnly cookie valid for 30 days. No user accounts — it's single-owner.

Public vs. private: Anyone can browse bookmarks and filter by tag. Only authenticated users see edit/delete controls and can call the mutation APIs.

Routing is handled manually in the default export function:

On Val Town, open snptrs/marx and click Fork.

In your val's environment settings, add:

AUTH_PASSWORD=your-password-here

The val doesn't auto-create its tables. Run this once as a Val Town script to set up the schema:

import { sqlite } from "https://esm.town/v/std/sqlite/main.ts";

await sqlite.execute(`
  CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bookmarks (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    url TEXT NOT NULL,
    title TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    description TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    saved TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT (datetime('now'))
  )
`);

await sqlite.execute(`
  CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS tags (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    name TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE
  )
`);

await sqlite.execute(`
  CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bookmark_tags (
    bookmark_id INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES bookmarks(id),
    tag_id INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES tags(id),
    UNIQUE(bookmark_id, tag_id)
  )
`);

POST a JSON array to /api/import with a Cookie header containing your session token, or just log in to your instance first and use your browser session.

[
  {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "title": "Example Site",
    "description": "Optional notes",
    "saved": "2024-06-01T12:00:00Z",
    "tags": ["design", "reference"]
  }
]

Once logged in:

• Edit — hover a bookmark and click "edit" to update its title, URL, description, or tags
• Delete — hover a bookmark and click "delete"
• Tag autocomplete — the tag input suggests existing tags as you type
• Rename/delete tags — navigate to a tag page and use the Rename/Delete buttons in the sidebar