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It didn’t scale. Great users were joining, but finding the right ones felt like digging for treasure.\n\n## User enrichment for engineers\n\nClearbit used to be the obvious answer for data enrichment, but after the Twilio acquisition it wasn’t really an option for net‑new customers. \n\nClay was great, but we wanted to use it like an API so anyone on our team can make calls to it directly and programmatically do custom things on top. Unfortunately, this isn't something they offer.\n\nWe tweeted about it and Clay responded with a way to do it! So we did it. \n\n![Screenshot 2025-08-07 at 4.05.51 PM.png](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/6e90463e-a636-45b4-58d4-daaf3f0a5800/public)\n\nWe turned Clay into an API in Val Town: https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/clay-proxy/branch/main/code/README.md. \n\nThis is for our fellow engineers doing sales!\n\n## How it works\n\nYour val calls `clay()` with an email or GitHub username. We verify who you are, generate a request id, and forward the payload to Clay with that id. Clay enriches and POSTs the result back using the same id. While your request is open, we poll for it. When it returns, we give you the JSON back as if it's a normal request/response.\n\nEnriching emails with Clay is as simple as\n\n```\nimport { clay } from \"https://esm.town/v/charmaine/clay-proxy/sdk.ts\";\n\nconst result = await clay({\n email: \"charmainekmlee@gmail.com\",\n source: \"user_signup\"\n});\n```\n\nIf you want to read how we built it, and get usage instructions: https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/clay-proxy.\n\nWe then started piping this new enriched data directly into our Discord / Slack channel (we use both). \n\nWe were no longer wasting time combing through dashboards. We were able to invest time into interacting with our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) users.\n\n## What this changed for us\nThis is a big part of how we found our first 10 pre-sales customers because:\n- We see who joined today and whether they look like ICP\n- Anyone can start a thread, tag the right person, or notify everyone else that they've already reached out\n![image.png](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/393a9a4f-45fd-4a79-a7b8-62784ae88700/public)\n- Warm intros surface naturally\n- The basic questions get answered without dashboards: how many joined, are we attracting our ICP, who owns follow‑ups\n\n## Then what?\nOnce you have this data, there's lots you can do. Here are some examples:\n- For users at devtool companies, we could reach out with autogenerated vals with their SDK to show how quick it was to get their SDK example up and running in Val Town\n- Get Townie to build people custom demos etc. based on their profile - Patrick has a great post about this","---\ntitle: How we used Clay as an API for enrichments (and you can too)\ndescription: User enrichments for startups\npubDate: 2025-08-07T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Charmaine Lee\n---\n\nI used to think user enrichment was reserved for big companies. \n\nThen we set a goal: we wanted to find 10 pre‑sales customers before launching Val Town for Teams. \n\nMy day turned into database queries, scrolling endless dashboards and tons of manual Google/GitHub/LinkedIn searches.\n\nWe even piped new users into Discord and did the “scroll a long feed of emails and hope you spot someone important” routine. It didn’t scale. Great users were joining, but finding the right ones felt like digging for treasure.\n\n## User enrichment for engineers\n\nClearbit used to be the obvious answer for data enrichment, but after the Twilio acquisition it wasn’t really an option for net‑new customers. \n\nClay was great, but we wanted to use it like an API so anyone on our team can make calls to it directly and programmatically do custom things on top. Unfortunately, this isn't something they offer.\n\nWe tweeted about it and Clay responded with a way to do it! \n\n![Screenshot 2025-08-07 at 4.05.51 PM.png](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/6e90463e-a636-45b4-58d4-daaf3f0a5800/public)\n\nWe turned Clay into an API in Val Town: https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/clay-proxy/branch/main/code/README.md. \n\nThis is for our fellow engineers doing sales!\n\n## How it works\n\nYour val calls `clay()` with an email or GitHub username. We verify who you are, generate a request id, and forward the payload to Clay with that id. Clay enriches and POSTs the result back using the same id. While your request is open, we poll for it. When it returns, we give you the JSON back as if it's a normal request/response.\n\nEnriching emails with Clay is as simple as\n\n```\nimport { clay } from \"https://esm.town/v/charmaine/clay-proxy/sdk.ts\";\n\nconst result = await clay({\n email: \"charmainekmlee@gmail.com\",\n source: \"user_signup\"\n});\n```\n\nIf you want to read how we built it, and get usage instructions: https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/clay-proxy.\n\nWe then started piping this new enriched data directly into our Discord / Slack channel (we use both). \n\nWe were no longer wasting time combing through dashboards. We were able to invest time into interacting with our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) users.\n\n## What this changed for us\nThis is a big part of how we found our first 10 pre-sales customers because:\n- We see who joined today and whether they look like ICP\n- Anyone can start a thread, tag the right person, or notify everyone else that they've already reached out\n![image.png](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/393a9a4f-45fd-4a79-a7b8-62784ae88700/public)\n- Warm intros surface naturally\n- The basic questions get answered without dashboards: how many joined, are we attracting our ICP, who owns follow‑ups\n\n## Then what?\nOnce you have this data, there's lots you can do. Here are some examples:\n- For users at devtool companies, we could reach out with autogenerated vals with their SDK to show how quick it was to get their SDK example up and running in Val Town\n- Get Townie to build people custom demos etc. based on their profile - Patrick has a great post about this","createdAt",["D",1754597512437],"branchVersion","branchId","bf2da0c6-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","id","bf2ab0dc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","blog-aug-7",["D",1754596648609],"deletedAt","legacyEnvVars","privacy","public","httpPrivacy","description","imageUrl","c156eb0e-8b9d-4104-a055-502e9a0eb441","pinnedFileId","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-b7c048c2c0c8","pinPreview",true,"pinMigrated","screenshotVersion","likeCount",0,"orgId","2019e55b-c541-4c51-bef0-008eef10ef88","tursoName","tursoHostname","tursoMeasuredAt","pinned","userPerm","r","valPerm","blobPerm","rw","emailPerm","sqlitePerm","projectPerm","telemetryPerm","user",{"_100":99,"_107":103},"org",{"_100":99,"_101":-5,"_102":103,"_18":54,"_104":105,"_106":25},"branch",{"_13":85,"_32":86,"_43":42,"_87":44,"_88":89,"_90":91,"_92":50,"_93":94,"_95":96,"_97":45,"_98":99},"isOwned",68,"main","projectId","forkedBranchId","6b9ea75a-0ffc-11f0-aae0-569c3dd06744","forkedBranchVersion",493,"forkedProjectPrivacy","forkedProjectId","6b9c47c6-0ffc-11f0-aae0-569c3dd06744","forkedProjectOrgId","ba7bb5fb-1abb-4ffb-8f3d-7c244782e5f7","projectName","userHandle","charmaine","handle","displayName","avatar","https://img.clerk.com/eyJ0eXBlIjoicHJveHkiLCJzcmMiOiJodHRwczovL2ltYWdlcy5jbGVyay5kZXYvdXBsb2FkZWQvaW1nXzJ4cFpFME5pSXNZamJNd296dlZSYVJ0OVF1RSJ9","tier","pro","canRestrictVals","profileImageUrl","branchName","","adoptOrgId",{"_43":44,"_32":45,"_38":541,"_47":-5,"_48":25,"_49":50,"_51":50,"_52":-5,"_53":-5,"_18":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":58,"_60":-5,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":-5,"_66":-5,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":70,"_72":73,"_74":73,"_75":73,"_76":70,"_77":70,"_78":542,"_80":543,"_82":544,"_84":25},"tree",[217,230,240,247,249,258,259,260,261],"files",[217,218,219,220,221,222,223,224,225,226,227,228,229,230,231,232,233,234,235,236,237,238,239,240,241,242,243,244,245,246,247,248,249,250,251,252,253,254,255,256,257,258,259,260,261],"counts",{"_207":62,"_208":156,"_209":62,"_210":211,"_212":213},"contents",[144,145,146,147,148,149,150,151,152],"upstreamProject",{"_43":94,"_32":139,"_52":140,"_53":141,"_49":50,"_78":142},"upstreamBranch",{"_43":89,"_38":132,"_133":134,"_32":86,"_87":94,"_13":135,"_88":-5,"_90":-5,"_136":137,"_47":-5,"_84":25,"_49":50,"_98":138,"_63":96,"_97":139},"emptyEnvVars","flags",[],"hasHttpFiles","grants","orgs","customDomains",{},["D",1743623725997],"updatedAt",["D",1789054957645],827,"lockfileKey","1789054957972-esm.town_v_valdottown_blog@827-main","valdottown","blog","blog.val.town - The official Val Town blog, built on Val Town","https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/17615000-9d9a-4575-e54f-3cce896c8101/square512?exp=1789591438&sig=611262983c42cd33c0b04c9debcaac705358f75c3ab4377f242759002b109257",{"_100":138,"_107":143},"https://img.clerk.com/eyJ0eXBlIjoicHJveHkiLCJzcmMiOiJodHRwczovL2ltYWdlcy5jbGVyay5kZXYvdXBsb2FkZWQvaW1nXzJyWnQ5cFE0c3pleVRCSEVTWmxzaXJsTUlGciJ9",{"_43":202,"_32":203,"_30":204,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":205,"_13":62,"_34":185,"_35":-5,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":206},{"_43":197,"_32":198,"_30":199,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":200,"_13":62,"_34":185,"_35":-5,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":201},{"_43":192,"_32":193,"_30":194,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":195,"_13":62,"_34":185,"_35":-5,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":196},{"_43":187,"_32":188,"_30":189,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":190,"_13":62,"_34":185,"_35":-5,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":191},{"_43":181,"_32":182,"_30":183,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":184,"_13":62,"_34":185,"_35":-5,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":186},{"_43":175,"_32":176,"_30":177,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":178,"_13":62,"_34":20,"_35":179,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":180},{"_43":169,"_32":170,"_30":171,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":172,"_13":62,"_34":20,"_35":173,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":174},{"_43":163,"_32":164,"_30":165,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":166,"_13":62,"_34":20,"_35":167,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":168},{"_43":153,"_32":154,"_30":56,"_155":-5,"_41":42,"_40":156,"_157":58,"_38":158,"_13":62,"_34":159,"_35":160,"_24":25,"_161":-5,"_27":162},"bf34db8e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","index.ts","parentId",1,"latest",["D",1754596648609],"http","import { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { cache } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0/cache\";\nimport blogRoutes from \"./routes/blog.ts\";\nimport faviconRoute from \"./routes/favicon.ts\";\nimport homeRoutes from \"./routes/home.ts\";\nimport ogImageRoute from \"./routes/og-image.ts\";\nimport proxyRoutes from \"./routes/proxy.ts\";\nimport rssRoute from \"./routes/rss.ts\";\nimport { liveReload } from \"./utils/live-reload.ts\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\n// Cache all responses for 5 minutes on blog.val.town\n// Do not cache on *.val.run domains for development\napp.get(\"*\", async (c, next) => {\n const url = new URL(c.req.url);\n if (url.hostname.endsWith(\".val.run\")) {\n return next();\n }\n return cache({\n cacheName: \"vt-blog\",\n cacheControl: \"public, max-age=300\",\n wait: true,\n })(c, next);\n});\n\napp.route(\"/\", homeRoutes);\napp.route(\"/rss.xml\", rssRoute);\napp.route(\"/favicon.svg\", faviconRoute);\napp.route(\"/og-image.png\", ogImageRoute);\napp.route(\"/\", blogRoutes);\n\n// Everything else, proxy to the old blog\napp.route(\"*\", proxyRoutes);\n\n// Unwrap Hono errors to see original error details\napp.onError((err: any, c: any) => {\n throw err;\n});\n\n// Export the fetch handler for Val Town\nexport default liveReload(app.fetch, import.meta.url);","label",[154],"bf34d9f4-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","TODOs.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-b11774b86f13",["D",1754596648609],"- [x] Make it look prettier\n- [x] Use something lighter-weight than TailwindCSS - maybe twind.dev? maybe hardcoded css?\n- [x] Make it faster\n- [x] Add cache headers for Cloudflare only, not browsers\n- [x] Add og: content for new posts hosted here (old posts will have it still)\n- [x] Deploy it to blog.val.town!\n- [ ] Tweet about the migration!\n- [ ] Add author profile photos",[164],"bf34d5bc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","README.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-af7597142b64",["D",1754596648609],"# Val Town Blog\n\n## Overview\n\nThe Val Town Blog is now hosted directly on Val Town! The blog combines new posts written directly in this project with proxied content from our legacy blog.\n\n## How It Works\n\n### Blog Architecture\n\n- **New Posts**: Blog posts are written in markdown with YAML frontmatter and stored in the `/posts` directory\n- **Legacy Posts**: Older blog posts are proxied from the original blog hosted at Cloudflare Pages (`val-town-blog.pages.dev`)\n- **Homepage**: The homepage dynamically displays posts by:\n 1. Reading local markdown files from the `/posts` directory\n 2. Combining them with posts from the old blog\n 3. Sorting all posts by date\n 4. Rendering the content with a clean, custom design\n\n### Project Structure\n\n- **`/index.ts`**: Main entry point that sets up Hono routing and middleware\n- **`/components/`**: React components for rendering the blog\n - **`Layout.tsx`**: Shared layout with header, footer, and styling\n - **`HomePage.tsx`**: Renders the blog homepage with featured and recent posts\n - **`BlogPost.tsx`**: Renders individual blog posts\n - **`Head.tsx`**: Manages metadata, styles, and SEO\n- **`/routes/`**: Hono route handlers for different parts of the blog\n - **`home.ts`**: Homepage route\n - **`blog.ts`**: Individual blog post routes\n - **`proxy.ts`**: Proxy to the old blog for legacy content\n - **`rss.ts`**: RSS feed generation\n - **`favicon.ts`** & **`og-image.ts`**: Asset routes\n- **`/utils/`**: Utility functions for post processing, caching, etc.\n- **`/posts/`**: Markdown files for blog posts\n- **`/styles/`**: CSS styling\n\n### Technical Stack\n\n- **React**: For server-side rendering components\n- **Hono**: Lightweight web framework for routing\n- **Custom CSS**: For styling (no external frameworks)\n- **Unified/Remark/Rehype**: For markdown processing with GitHub Flavored Markdown support\n- **Gray Matter**: For parsing YAML frontmatter\n\n## Adding New Blog Posts\n\nTo add a new blog post to the Val Town Blog:\n\n1. Create a markdown file in the `/posts` directory with YAML frontmatter:\n\n```markdown\n---\ntitle: My New Blog Post\ndescription: A brief description of the post\npubDate: 2025-04-01T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Your Name\n---\n\nContent of your blog post in markdown format...\n```\n\n2. The post will automatically appear on the homepage and be accessible at `/blog/[slug]`\n\n## Markdown Features\n\nThe blog supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) with:\n\n- Code syntax highlighting\n- Tables\n- Lists\n- Images\n- And other standard markdown features\n\n## Development\n\n### Live Reload\n\nThe blog includes a live reload feature that automatically refreshes the page when changes are made to the project. This works when viewing the blog on a `.val.run` domain during development.\n\n### Caching\n\nThe blog implements efficient caching:\n\n- Cache headers are set for Cloudflare CDN but not for browsers\n- Cache TTL is set to 5 minutes by default\n- Domains ending with `.val.run` are excluded from caching\n\n### Performance Optimizations\n\n- Server-side rendering for fast initial page loads\n- Efficient proxy for legacy content\n- Minimal CSS with no external frameworks\n- Optimized image handling\n\n## Deployment\n\nThe blog is deployed directly on Val Town, with the production version available at [blog.val.town](https://blog.val.town).",[170],"bf34d440-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","IMAGES.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-a9b9dd98e3af",["D",1754596648609],"Eventually we should host all our images properly, but for now, drag and drop them here 👇\n\n* https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/4d90a6f7-247c-4df4-3de6-928364e10000/public\n* 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type BlogPost = {\n title: string;\n link: string;\n description: string;\n pubDate: string;\n author: string;\n content?: string;\n slug?: string;\n oldBlog?: boolean;\n};",[],[182,276],"bf34cb4e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","render-markdown.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-9fe5cfec192c",["D",1754596648609],"import rehypeHighlight from \"npm:rehype-highlight\";\nimport rehypeRaw from \"npm:rehype-raw\"; // Add this import\nimport rehypeSlug from \"npm:rehype-slug\";\nimport rehypeStringify from \"npm:rehype-stringify\";\nimport remarkFrontmatter from \"npm:remark-frontmatter\";\nimport remarkGfm from \"npm:remark-gfm\";\nimport remarkParse from \"npm:remark-parse\";\nimport remarkRehype from \"npm:remark-rehype\";\nimport { unified } from \"npm:unified\";\n\n// Process markdown content\nexport async function processMarkdown(content: string): Promise {\n const result = await unified()\n .use(remarkParse)\n .use(remarkGfm)\n .use(remarkFrontmatter)\n .use(remarkRehype, { allowDangerousHtml: true }) // Enable passing raw HTML\n .use(rehypeRaw) // Parse the raw HTML tags\n .use(rehypeSlug)\n .use(rehypeHighlight)\n .use(rehypeStringify)\n .process(content);\n\n return result.toString();\n}",[],[182,284],"bf34c9a0-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","posts.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-987f2c60031e",["D",1754596648609],"import { getAllBlogPosts } from \"./get-posts.ts\";\n\nexport const posts = await getAllBlogPosts();",[],[182,291],"bf34c2fc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","live-reload.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-95fb1efddb07",["D",1754596648609],"// inspo: https://www.val.town/v/stevekrouse/reloadOnSave\nimport ValTown from \"https://esm.sh/@valtown/sdk@1.0.0.\"; // TODO: why don't we get types here?\n\nconst client = new ValTown({ bearerToken: \"\" });\n\nasync function getProjectAndBranchIds(importMetaUrl: string) {\n // imported dynamically because this is server-only but this file is also imported on the client\n const { parseVal } = await import(\n \"https://esm.town/v/std/utils/index.ts\"\n );\n\n const {\n name: valName,\n branch: branchName,\n username,\n } = parseVal(importMetaUrl);\n const { id: project_id } = await client.alias.username.valName.retrieve(\n username,\n valName,\n );\n const branches = await client.vals.branches.list(project_id, { limit: 100 });\n const branch = branches.data.find((branch) => branch.name === branchName);\n if (!branch) {\n throw new Error(`Branch ${branchName} not found`);\n }\n const branch_id = branch.id;\n return { project_id, branch_id };\n}\n\nasync function projectLastUpdatedAt(\n { project_id, branch_id }: { project_id: string; branch_id: string },\n) {\n const { updatedAt } = await client.vals.branches.retrieve(\n project_id,\n branch_id,\n );\n return new Date(updatedAt).getTime();\n}\n\n/**\n * Creates a wrapper around a fetch handler that injects a script tag into HTML responses\n *\n * @param handler The original fetch handler function\n * @param scriptContent The HTML content to inject\n * @returns A new fetch handler with HTML rewriting capability\n */\nexport function injectHTML(\n handler: (request: Request) => Promise,\n html: string,\n): (request: Request) => Promise {\n let HTMLRewriter:\n | typeof import(\"https://ghuc.cc/worker-tools/html-rewriter/index.ts\").HTMLRewriter\n | undefined;\n // Return the new handler function\n return async (request: Request) => {\n if (!HTMLRewriter) {\n HTMLRewriter =\n (await import(\"https://ghuc.cc/worker-tools/html-rewriter/index.ts\"))\n .HTMLRewriter;\n }\n // Call the original handler to get the response\n const response = await handler(request);\n\n // Check if the response is HTML\n const contentType = response.headers.get(\"Content-Type\");\n if (contentType && contentType.includes(\"text/html\")) {\n // Use HTMLRewriter to inject the script at the end of the body\n return new HTMLRewriter()\n .on(\"body\", {\n element(element) {\n element.append(html, { html: true });\n },\n })\n .transform(response);\n }\n\n // Return the original response if it's not HTML\n return response;\n };\n}\n\nexport function liveReload(\n handler: (request: Request) => Promise,\n importMetaUrl: string,\n): (request: Request) => Promise {\n let ids: { project_id: string; branch_id: string } | undefined;\n\n return async (req: Request) => {\n if (!ids) {\n ids = await getProjectAndBranchIds(importMetaUrl);\n }\n\n // if we wanted to create a /lastUpdatedAt route,\n // which would let us pass a val town bearer token, we could do that here\n // gives us 10k API requests per minute instead of 1k\n // and would work with private projects\n\n return injectHTML(\n handler,\n ``,\n )(req);\n };\n}\n\n/* ------------------------------\n * Client\n * ------------------------------ */\n\nasync function registerNextCheck(\n { pageLoad, project_id, branch_id }: {\n pageLoad: number;\n project_id: string;\n branch_id: string;\n },\n) {\n const lastUpdatedAt = await projectLastUpdatedAt({ project_id, branch_id });\n\n // if lastUpdatedAt was after this page was first loaded, reload\n if (lastUpdatedAt > pageLoad) {\n console.info(\"Reloading...\");\n window.location.reload();\n } // if lastUpdatedAt was within the last 15 minutes, check in 500ms\n else if (lastUpdatedAt > pageLoad - 15 * 60 * 1000) {\n console.info(\"Checking in 500ms...\");\n setTimeout(\n () => registerNextCheck({ pageLoad, project_id, branch_id }),\n 500,\n );\n } // if lastUpdatedAt was within the last hour, check in a second\n else if (lastUpdatedAt > pageLoad - 60 * 60 * 1000) {\n console.info(\"Checking in 1s...\");\n setTimeout(\n () => registerNextCheck({ pageLoad, project_id, branch_id }),\n 1_000,\n );\n } // if it was greater than the last hour, check in 5 seconds\n else {\n console.info(\"Checking in 5s...\");\n setTimeout(\n () => registerNextCheck({ pageLoad, project_id, branch_id }),\n 5_000,\n );\n }\n}\n\nexport async function main(ids: { project_id: string; branch_id: string }) {\n // don't run this on custom domains, ie not on blog.val.run\n if (!window.location.hostname.endsWith(\".val.run\")) {\n console.log(\"Skipping live reload because not on *.val.run...\");\n return;\n }\n\n const pageLoad = Date.now();\n registerNextCheck({ pageLoad, ...ids });\n}",[],[182,298],"bf34c144-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","get-posts.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-9268b0d71dc0",["D",1754596648609],"import { getBlogPostBySlug, getNewPosts } from \"./get-new-posts.ts\";\nimport { oldPosts } from \"./get-old-posts.ts\";\nimport { type BlogPost } from \"./types.ts\";\n\n// Get all blog posts (local + RSS)\nexport async function getAllBlogPosts(): Promise {\n return (await Promise.all([\n getNewPosts(),\n oldPosts,\n ]))\n .flat()\n .sort((a, b) => {\n return new Date(b.pubDate).getTime() - new Date(a.pubDate).getTime();\n });\n}",[],[182,305],"bf34b10e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","get-old-posts.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-8d1d76a1df8e",["D",1754596648609],"import RssParser from \"npm:rss-parser\";\nimport { BlogPost } from \"./types.ts\";\n\nconst OLD_BLOG_RSS = \"https://val-town-blog.pages.dev/rss.xml\";\n// Get blog posts from RSS feed\nasync function getOldPosts(): Promise {\n const parser = new RssParser();\n const feed = await parser.parseURL(OLD_BLOG_RSS);\n return feed.items.map(item => ({\n title: item.title || \"Untitled\",\n slug: item?.link?.split(\"/\")?.at(-2),\n link: \"/blog/\" + item?.link?.split(\"/\")?.at(-2),\n description: item.contentSnippet || \"\",\n pubDate: item.pubDate || new Date().toISOString(),\n author: item.creator || \"Val Town Team\",\n }));\n}\n\nexport const oldPosts: BlogPost[] = [\n {\n \"title\": \"Solving the internal / external API riddle\",\n \"slug\": \"api-conundrum\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/api-conundrum\",\n \"description\": \"Figuring out how to provide an API that's usable by everyone and fast for us to iterate on\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"API Tokens Scopes\",\n \"slug\": \"api-token-scopes\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/api-token-scopes\",\n \"description\": \"Improving security with granular control over permissions\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Building a code-writing robot and keeping it happy\",\n \"slug\": \"building-a-code-writing-robot\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/building-a-code-writing-robot\",\n \"description\": \"Our experiences running LLMs in production\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"How we built Townie – an app that generates fullstack apps\",\n \"slug\": \"codegen\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/codegen\",\n \"description\": \"Like Claude Artifacts, but with a backend and database\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"JP Posma\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"End-programmer Programming\",\n \"slug\": \"end-programmer-programming\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/end-programmer-programming\",\n \"description\": \"A reflection on the goal of making programming for everyone.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Expanding the Vals API - RFC\",\n \"slug\": \"expanding-the-vals-api-rfc\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/expanding-the-vals-api-rfc\",\n \"description\": \"Our REST API lets you do a lot - and soon it will enable more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"André Terron\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"What we learned copying all the best code assistants\",\n \"slug\": \"fast-follow\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/fast-follow\",\n \"description\":\n \"From GitHub Copilot to ChatGPT to Claude Artifacts, how Val Town borrowed the best of all the code generation tools\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town + Fal Partnership\",\n \"slug\": \"fal\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/fal\",\n \"description\": \"Bringing lightning fast AI image generation to Val Town\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Moving from express to fastify, pt 1\",\n \"slug\": \"fastify\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/fastify\",\n \"description\": \"How switching to Fastify let us embrace runtime and compile-time types\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 02 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"The first four Val Town runtimes\",\n \"slug\": \"first-four-val-town-runtimes\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/first-four-val-town-runtimes\",\n \"description\": \"From vm to vm2 to workers to processes, the long journey to how we run vals today\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"New HTTP Val Runtime in Preview\",\n \"slug\": \"http-preview\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/http-preview\",\n \"description\": \"We built a new runtime for HTTP vals that is up to 5x faster at scale\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"HTTP Streaming in Val Town\",\n \"slug\": \"http-streaming\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/http-streaming\",\n \"description\":\n \"Val Town supports HTTP streaming for streaming LLMs, large requests and responses, and server-sent events\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 13 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Introducing val.run\",\n \"slug\": \"introducing-val-run\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/introducing-val-run\",\n \"description\": \"Increasing the security of Val Town by isolating domains.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Migrating from Supabase\",\n \"slug\": \"migrating-from-supabase\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/migrating-from-supabase\",\n \"description\": \"Our journey from Supabase to Postgres and Render\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 19 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"The perks of a good OpenAPI spec\",\n \"slug\": \"openapi\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/openapi\",\n \"description\": \"Taking advantage of our typed REST API to build a platform around\\nVal Town.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Joining the Open Source Pledge\",\n \"slug\": \"oss\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/oss\",\n \"description\": \"We donated $9,600 to open-source!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Post-mortem: esm.sh Breaking Changes\",\n \"slug\": \"post-mortem-esm-sh\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/post-mortem-esm-sh\",\n \"description\": \"Some vals experienced lockfile and React errors due to breaking changes in esm.sh\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Post-mortem: Exhausted Host Connection Pool\",\n \"slug\": \"post-mortem-exhausted-host-connection-pool\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/post-mortem-exhausted-host-connection-pool\",\n \"description\": \"A single degraded host impacted certain Vals for some time.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Post-mortem: SQLite data sharing\",\n \"slug\": \"post-mortem-sqlite-data-sharing\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/post-mortem-sqlite-data-sharing\",\n \"description\": \"Disclosing and fixing a recent security issue\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 24 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Introducing Val Town Projects\",\n \"slug\": \"projects\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/projects\",\n \"description\":\n \"Dramatically increasing the scope of what you can build in Val Town, Projects are groups of vals, files, and folders, versioned collectively\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Public Key Auth: Val Town users can be your users\",\n \"slug\": \"public-key-auth-val-town-users-can-be-your-users\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/public-key-auth-val-town-users-can-be-your-users\",\n \"description\": \"A novel authorization scheme for Val Town\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Redesigning Val Pages\",\n \"slug\": \"redesigning-val-pages\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/redesigning-val-pages\",\n \"description\": \"A more understandable entry-point to Val Town\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"An Introduction to OpenAI fine-tuning\",\n \"slug\": \"an-introduction-to-openai-fine-tuning\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/an-introduction-to-openai-fine-tuning\",\n \"description\": \"How to customize OpenAI to your liking\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 25 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Improving the Val Editor\",\n \"slug\": \"editor-redesign\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/editor-redesign\",\n \"description\": \"Designing the core UI of editing\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"How we lock your dependencies\",\n \"slug\": \"lockfiles\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/lockfiles\",\n \"description\": \"Adding lockfiles to Val Town for stability, security, and performance.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Post-mortem: Blob Storage Outage\",\n \"slug\": \"post-mortem-blob-storage-outage\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/post-mortem-blob-storage-outage\",\n \"description\": \"Disclosure, mitigation, and next steps\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Code Search is Hard\",\n \"slug\": \"search-notes\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/search-notes\",\n \"description\": \"Searching code at scale without employing a search team is hard\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Security Disclosure 1\",\n \"slug\": \"security-disclosure-1\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/security-disclosure-1\",\n \"description\": \"Replacing our sandbox in response to a security disclosure\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Security Disclosure 2\",\n \"slug\": \"security-disclosure-2\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/security-disclosure-2\",\n \"description\": \"Missing permissions-checking in our internal save endpoint\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town's Seed Round\",\n \"slug\": \"seed\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/seed\",\n \"description\": \"We raised $5.5m to make programming fun, accessible, and collaborative.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"The API we forgot to name\",\n \"slug\": \"the-api-we-forgot-to-name\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/the-api-we-forgot-to-name\",\n \"description\": \"An API that takes a Request and returns a Response - what was that, again?\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Introducing Townie AI\",\n \"slug\": \"townie\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/townie\",\n \"description\": \"Meet Townie, our AI assistant that helps you ship apps fast\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Restricted Library Mode\",\n \"slug\": \"restricted-library-mode\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/restricted-library-mode\",\n \"description\": \"Evolving Val Town’s security model\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Deprecating the Run API\",\n \"slug\": \"deprecating-the-run-api\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/deprecating-the-run-api\",\n \"description\": \"Not every function should be an API\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"André Terron\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Using Val Town to chart dependency bloat\",\n \"slug\": \"devstats\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/devstats\",\n \"description\": \"Building a simple aggregate view of our codebase\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 0\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-0\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-0\",\n \"description\": \"Smarter typeahead, tutorials, much more.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Zod is amazing. Here’s why we're also using TypeBox\",\n \"slug\": \"typebox\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/typebox\",\n \"description\": \"Why we’re using TypeBox instead of Zod for our server validation layer\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Tom MacWright\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 1\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-1\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-1\",\n \"description\": \"Programmatic notifications, Hacker News API, and more.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 04 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 10\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-10\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-10\",\n \"description\": \"A year of Val Town!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 05 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 13\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-13\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-13\",\n \"description\": \"SQLite, Blob Storage, updates to how Vals are named, and more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 11\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-11\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-11\",\n \"description\": \"Hiring, podcasts, and more!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 12\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-12\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-12\",\n \"description\": \"Product Hunt, v3 in development, and more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Introducing Val Town v3\",\n \"slug\": \"introducing-val-town-v3\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/introducing-val-town-v3\",\n \"description\": \"Our move to embrace web standards\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Why is spawning a new process in Node so slow?\",\n \"slug\": \"node-spawn-performance\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/node-spawn-performance\",\n \"description\": \"At Val Town we spawn a lot of processes. We're working on making it faster\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 14\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-14\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-14\",\n \"description\": \"Pull Requests, Val Editor Redesign, AI Suggestions, OSS Docs, New Astro Blog, Templates\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 15\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-15\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-15\",\n \"description\": \"Custom domains, Logs 3.0, Faster HTTP responses, Status page & much more!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 17\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-17\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-17\",\n \"description\": \"Improved performance, redesigned val page, live coding, and much more!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 2\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-2\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-2\",\n \"description\": \"Your monthly update of cool vals!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 18\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-18\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-18\",\n \"description\": \"HTTP Streaming, Semantic Search, Townie AI Chat, and a TypeScript SDK\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 16\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-16\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-16\",\n \"description\": \"Our seed round, growing team, Codeium completions, @std/openai, and more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 19\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-19\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-19\",\n \"description\":\n \"Full-screen Editor, 5x faster HTTP vals, new Dashboard, improved Search, Townie redesign, Trending redesign, Profile filters, and more!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 20\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-20\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-20\",\n \"description\": \"Townie AI, Faster vals, and Lockfiles\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 21\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-21\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-21\",\n \"description\": \"Townie upgrades & faster HTTP vals\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 22\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-22\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-22\",\n \"description\": \"Townie upgrades, Scoped API permissions, Fal partnership\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 23\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-23\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-23\",\n \"description\": \"Projects beta, Deno 2, Use cases, and more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 24\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-24\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-24\",\n \"description\":\n \"Val Town Projects, Highlight to edit, Logs redesign, Public endpoints with private code, and much more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 3\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-3\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-3\",\n \"description\": \"Expanding our founding team\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 5\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-5\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-5\",\n \"description\": \"Shipping our Deno runtime\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 4\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-4\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-4\",\n \"description\": \"Rebuilding on Deno, HTML emails, and more\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Thu, 02 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 6\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-6\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-6\",\n \"description\": \"Lots of little updates!\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 7\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-7\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-7\",\n \"description\": \"Moving off of Supabase and enhancing our security with restricted library mode\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 8\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-8\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-8\",\n \"description\": \"Announcing Val Town Pro\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Town\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-town\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-town\",\n \"description\": \"Can we implement Val Town on Val Town?\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Max McDonnell\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Town Newsletter 9\",\n \"slug\": \"val-town-newsletter-9\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-town-newsletter-9\",\n \"description\": \"Refactoring the core component of Val Town for better performance.\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"Steve Krouse\",\n },\n {\n \"title\": \"Val Vibes: Semantic search in Val Town\",\n \"slug\": \"val-vibes\",\n \"link\": \"/blog/val-vibes\",\n \"description\": \"How to build semantic search with embeddings for Val Town within Val Town itself\",\n \"pubDate\": \"Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT\",\n \"author\": \"JP Posma\",\n },\n].map(post => ({ ...post, oldBlog: true }));",[],[182,312],"bf34accc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","get-new-posts.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-8ba590b93acf",["D",1754596648609],"import { readFile } from \"https://esm.town/v/std/utils/index.ts\";\nimport matter from \"npm:gray-matter\";\nimport { posts } from \"./posts.ts\";\nimport { BlogPost } from \"./types.ts\";\n\nimport { parseVal } from \"https://esm.town/v/std/utils/index.ts\";\nimport ValTown from \"npm:@valtown/sdk@1.9.0\";\n\nexport async function listFiles(metaImportUrl: string) {\n const vt = new ValTown();\n\n const val = parseVal(metaImportUrl);\n const { id } = await vt.alias.username.valName.retrieve(\n val.username,\n val.name,\n );\n\n let branch_id: string | undefined;\n if (val.branch !== \"main\") {\n const branches = await Array.fromAsync(vt.vals.branches.list(id, {}));\n const branch = branches.find((b) => b.name === val.branch);\n if (!branch) {\n throw new Error(\"Failed to find branch \" + val.branch);\n }\n branch_id = branch.id;\n }\n\n const files = await Array.fromAsync(vt.vals.files.retrieve(id, {\n path: \"\",\n branch_id,\n recursive: true,\n }));\n return files;\n}\n\n// Get all blog posts from the file system\nexport async function getNewPosts(): Promise {\n try {\n const files = await listFiles(import.meta.url);\n\n return [];\n\n const blogPostFiles = files.filter(\n (file) =>\n file.path.startsWith(\"posts/\") &&\n file.path !== \"posts/EXAMPLE.md\",\n );\n\n const posts: BlogPost[] = [];\n\n for (const file of blogPostFiles) {\n const content = await readFile(file.path, import.meta.url);\n const { data, content: markdownContent } = matter(content);\n\n // Skip if required frontmatter is missing\n if (!data.title || !data.pubDate) continue;\n\n const slug = file.path\n .replace(\"posts/\", \"\")\n .replace(\".md\", \"\")\n .replace(/^\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}-/, \"\");\n\n posts.push({\n title: data.title,\n link: \"/\" + slug,\n description: data.description || \"\",\n pubDate: data.pubDate,\n author: data.author || \"Val Town Team\",\n slug,\n content: markdownContent,\n });\n }\n\n return posts;\n } catch (e) {\n console.log(e);\n return [];\n }\n}\n\n// Get a single blog post by slug\nexport async function getBlogPostBySlug(\n slug: string,\n): Promise {\n const post = posts.find((post) => post.slug.includes(slug));\n return post;\n}",[],[182,319],"bf34ab5a-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","constants.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-85efdcb2298d",["D",1754596648609],"export const BLOG_URL = \"https://blog.val.town\";\nexport const SITE_TITLE = \"Val Town Blog\";\nexport const SITE_DESCRIPTION = \"Updates and articles from the Val Town team\";",[],[182,326],["D",1754596648609],[250,251,252,253,254,255,256,257],[182],"bf34a11e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","index.css","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-7fd63ebf96d1",["D",1754596648609],"* {\n box-sizing: border-box;\n}\n\n/* ia-writer-quattro-latin-400-normal */\n@font-face {\n font-family: \"iA Writer Quattro\";\n font-style: normal;\n font-display: swap;\n font-weight: 400;\n src:\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-quattro@latest/latin-400-normal.woff2)\n format(\"woff2\"),\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-quattro@latest/latin-400-normal.woff)\n format(\"woff\");\n}\n\n/* ia-writer-quattro-latin-700-normal */\n@font-face {\n font-family: \"iA Writer Quattro\";\n font-style: normal;\n font-display: swap;\n font-weight: 700;\n src:\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-quattro@latest/latin-700-normal.woff2)\n format(\"woff2\"),\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-quattro@latest/latin-700-normal.woff)\n format(\"woff\");\n}\n\n/* ia-writer-mono-latin-400-normal */\n@font-face {\n font-family: \"iA Writer Mono\";\n font-style: normal;\n font-display: swap;\n font-weight: 400;\n src:\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-mono@latest/latin-400-normal.woff2)\n format(\"woff2\"),\n url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/ia-writer-mono@latest/latin-400-normal.woff)\n format(\"woff\");\n}\n\n:root {\n --text: #000;\n --background: #fff;\n\n /** colors based on hljs solar-flare-light theme */\n --link: #a363d5;\n --highlight: #33b5e1;\n --muted: #57636d; /* --muted: #85939e; */\n --light-highlight: color-mix(in srgb, var(--highlight) 50%, transparent);\n --code-background: #f5f7fa; /* from hljs */\n\n --font: \"iA Writer Quattro\", system-ui, sans-serif;\n --mono: \"iA Writer Mono\", Menlo, monospace;\n\n --space-1: 4px;\n --space-2: 8px;\n --space-3: 16px;\n --space-4: 32px;\n --space-5: 64px;\n --space-6: 128px;\n\n --font-size-xl: 36px;\n --font-size-1: 32px;\n --font-size-2: 24px;\n --font-size-3: 20px;\n --font-size-4: 18px;\n --font-size-5: 14px;\n --font-size-6: 12px;\n\n --line-height-h1: 1.25;\n --line-height-h2: calc(32 / 24);\n --line-height-h3: calc(24 / 20);\n --line-height-h4: calc(32 / 18);\n --line-height-h5: calc(24 / 14);\n --line-height-h6: calc(16 / 12);\n\n --rounded: 12px;\n}\n\nbody {\n margin: 0;\n font-family: var(--font);\n line-height: 1.5;\n color: var(--text);\n background-color: var(--background);\n\n text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;\n -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;\n word-wrap: break-word;\n overflow-wrap: break-word;\n}\n\nh1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ol, ul {\n margin: 0;\n}\n\nh1, .h1 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-1);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h1);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n letter-spacing: -0.03em;\n}\n\n.post-title {\n font-weight: 400;\n letter-spacing: -0.03em;\n}\n\nh2, .h2 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-2);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h2);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n\nh3, .h3 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-3);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h3);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n\nh4, .h4 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-4);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h4);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n\nh5, .h5 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-5);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h5);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n\nh6, .h6 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-6);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h6);\n margin-top: var(--space-3);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n.f6 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-6);\n}\n\n.h0 {\n font-size: var(--font-size-xl);\n line-height: 48px;\n}\n.lead {\n font-size: var(--font-size-3);\n}\n\na {\n color: inherit;\n text-decoration: underline;\n text-decoration-color: var(--highlight);\n}\na:hover {\n text-decoration-color: var(--link);\n}\n.prose a:hover {\n color: var(--link);\n}\n\nh1 a, h2 a, h3 a, h4 a, h5 a, h6 a {\n color: inherit;\n text-decoration: underline;\n text-decoration-color: var(--highlight);\n text-decoration-thickness: 2px;\n}\nh1 a:hover, h2 a:hover, h3 a:hover, h4 a:hover, h5 a:hover, h6 a:hover {\n text-decoration-color: var(--link);\n}\n\np, ol, ul {\n margin-bottom: var(--space-3);\n font-size: var(--font-size-4);\n line-height: calc(32 / 18);\n}\n\nli {\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n\nimg {\n max-width: 100%;\n height: auto;\n}\n\npre {\n margin-bottom: var(--space-3);\n}\n\npre, code {\n font-family: var(--mono);\n}\n\npre > code.hljs {\n font-size: var(--font-size-5);\n line-height: var(--line-height-h5);\n padding: 24px;\n border-radius: var(--rounded);\n}\n\ncode {\n font-size: 87.5%;\n padding: 0 2px;\n border-radius: 2px;\n color: var(--link);\n background-color: var(--code-background);\n}\n\n/** TODO: test this */\nblockquote {\n padding-left: var(--space-3);\n padding-right: 0;\n margin-left: 0;\n margin-right: 0;\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-4);\n border-left: 2px solid var(--highlight);\n}\nblockquote p {\n font-size: var(--font-size-3);\n}\n\ntable {\n width: 100%;\n font-size: 80%;\n border-collapse: collapse;\n margin: 20 0 20 0px;\n}\ntable th, td {\n text-align: left;\n}\ntable th {\n font-weight: 700;\n}\ntable td {\n border-top: 1px solid var(--light-highlight);\n}\ntable th, table td {\n padding: 8px 0;\n}\n\n.page {\n padding-left: var(--space-4);\n padding-right: var(--space-4);\n}\n\n.container {\n max-width: 1280px;\n margin-left: auto;\n margin-right: auto;\n}\n\n.post-list {\n list-style: none;\n padding: 0;\n}\n.post-item {\n max-width: 48em;\n margin-top: var(--space-3);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-3);\n}\n\n.header {\n min-height: 128px;\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n}\n.spacer {\n margin: auto;\n}\n.logo {\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n}\n.nav {\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n gap: var(--space-3);\n}\n.social-links {\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n gap: var(--space-2);\n}\n\n.nav-link {\n font-size: var(--font-size-4);\n font-weight: 700;\n}\n\n.nav-link, .social-link {\n color: inherit;\n text-decoration: none;\n display: inline-flex;\n align-items: center;\n justify-content: center;\n padding: 6px;\n border-radius: 9999px;\n transition-property: color, background-color;\n transition-timing-function: ease-in-out;\n transition-duration: 200ms;\n}\n.social-link:hover {\n color: var(--background);\n background-color: var(--highlight);\n}\n\n.title {\n font-size: var(--font-size-xl);\n font-weight: 700;\n color: inherit;\n text-decoration: none;\n}\n.title:hover {\n text-decoration: underline;\n text-decoration-color: var(--highlight);\n}\n\n.hero-grid {\n display: grid;\n gap: var(--space-6);\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-4);\n}\n\n.footer {\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n min-height: 100px;\n}\n\n.copyright {\n text-align: right;\n margin-bottom: var(--space-4);\n}\n\n.prose, .container-small {\n max-width: 48em;\n margin-left: auto;\n margin-right: auto;\n margin-top: var(--space-4);\n}\n\n.eyebrow {\n font-size: var(--font-size-6);\n font-weight: 700;\n text-transform: uppercase;\n letter-spacing: 0.2em;\n height: var(--space-4);\n color: var(--highlight);\n border-bottom: 2px solid var(--light-highlight);\n}\n\n.byline {\n font-size: var(--font-size-5);\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n gap: var(--space-3);\n margin-top: var(--space-2);\n margin-bottom: var(--space-2);\n}\n.weekday, .tag {\n display: inline-flex;\n align-items: center;\n height: 24px;\n text-transform: uppercase;\n letter-spacing: 0.2em;\n font-size: var(--font-size-6);\n font-weight: 700;\n color: var(--background);\n background-color: var(--highlight);\n border-radius: 3px;\n padding-left: 6px;\n padding-right: 6px;\n}\n.timestamp, .author {\n color: var(--muted);\n}\n\n@media screen and (min-width: 48em) {\n .hero-grid {\n grid-template-columns: 3fr 2fr;\n }\n}\n\n/** DEBUG */\n.debug, .debug * {\n outline: 1px solid rgba(0, 255, 255, 0.2);\n}\n.baseline {\n background: linear-gradient(\n to bottom,\n transparent calc(100% - 1px),\n var(--light-highlight) calc(100% - 1px)\n );\n background-size: 100% var(--space-3);\n}",[],[188,336],["D",1754596648609],[248],[188],"bf349dcc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","rss.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-74f585996051",["D",1754596648609],"import { Feed } from \"https://esm.sh/feed@4.2.2\";\nimport { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { posts } from \"../utils/posts.ts\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\napp.get(\"/\", async (c) => {\n // Create a new feed instance\n const feed = new Feed({\n title: \"Val Town Blog\",\n description: \"The official blog for Val Town\",\n id: \"https://blog.val.town/\",\n link: \"https://blog.val.town/\",\n language: \"en\",\n favicon: \"https://blog.val.town/favicon.svg\",\n updated: new Date(posts[0].pubDate),\n feedLinks: {\n rss: \"https://blog.val.town/rss.xml\",\n },\n });\n\n // Add each post to the feed\n for (const post of posts) {\n feed.addItem({\n title: post.title,\n id: `https://blog.val.town${post.link}`,\n link: `https://blog.val.town${post.link}`,\n description: post.description,\n author: [\n {\n name: post.author,\n },\n ],\n date: new Date(post.pubDate),\n });\n }\n\n // Return the RSS feed\n return new Response(feed.rss2(), {\n headers: {\n \"Content-Type\": \"application/xml; charset=utf-8\",\n },\n });\n});\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,346],"bf349b60-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","proxy.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-73f144f4c24f",["D",1754596648609],"import { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\nconst OLD_BLOG_URL = \"https://val-town-blog.pages.dev/\";\n\nexport async function proxyHonoRequest(c: any) {\n const url = new URL(c.req.url);\n\n // Proxy the request to the old blog\n const response = await fetch(\n new Request(OLD_BLOG_URL + url.pathname + url.search, {\n method: c.req.method,\n headers: c.req.raw.headers,\n }),\n );\n\n // Create a new response with the same status, headers, and body\n const newResponse = new Response(response.body, {\n status: response.status,\n statusText: response.statusText,\n headers: response.headers,\n });\n return newResponse;\n}\n\n// Fallback proxy route - handles all other requests\napp.all(\"*\", proxyHonoRequest);\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,353],"bf3499ee-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","og-image.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-6f1bba0aa7b4",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { render as renderPNG } from \"https://deno.land/x/resvg_wasm@0.2.0/mod.ts\";\nimport { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { renderToStaticMarkup } from \"https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.2.0/server\";\nimport OGImage from \"../components/OGImage.tsx\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\napp.get(\"/\", async (c) => {\n const title = c.req.query(\"title\");\n const format = c.req.query(\"format\");\n const svg = renderToStaticMarkup();\n\n if (format === \"svg\") {\n return new Response(svg, {\n headers: {\n \"Content-Type\": \"image/svg+xml\",\n },\n });\n }\n\n const png = await renderPNG(svg);\n\n return new Response(png, {\n headers: {\n \"Content-Type\": \"image/png\",\n \"Content-Length\": png.length.toString(),\n },\n });\n});\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,360],"bf349868-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","home.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-684e24cdf0a0",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { renderToString } from \"https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.2.0/server\";\nimport { HomePage } from \"../components/HomePage.tsx\";\nimport { posts } from \"../utils/posts.ts\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\napp.get(\"/\", async (c) => {\n const html = renderToString();\n return c.html(html);\n});\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,367],"bf34970a-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","favicon.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-669844a8dccd",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { renderToStaticMarkup } from \"https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.2.0/server\";\nimport { Favicon } from \"../components/LogoMark.tsx\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\nconst svg = renderToStaticMarkup();\n\napp.get(\"/\", async (c) => {\n return c.body(\n svg,\n {\n headers: {\n \"Content-Type\": \"image/svg+xml\",\n },\n },\n );\n});\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,374],"bf34958e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","blog.ts","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-606498b93050",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { Hono } from \"https://esm.sh/hono@3.12.0\";\nimport { renderToString } from \"https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.2.0/server\";\nimport { BlogPostComponent } from \"../components/BlogPost.tsx\";\nimport { getBlogPostBySlug } from \"../utils/get-new-posts.ts\";\nimport { processMarkdown } from \"../utils/render-markdown.ts\";\nimport { proxyHonoRequest } from \"./proxy.ts\";\n\nconst app = new Hono();\n\n// Handle blog post routes\napp.get(\"/:slug\", async (c) => {\n const slug = c.req.param(\"slug\");\n\n let post = await getBlogPostBySlug(slug);\n if (!post || post?.oldBlog) {\n // Post doesn't exist, proxy to the old blog\n return proxyHonoRequest(c);\n }\n\n // Process the markdown content\n const processedContent = await processMarkdown(post.content);\n\n // Render the blog post\n const html = renderToString(\n ,\n );\n\n return c.html(html);\n});\n\nexport default app;",[],[193,381],["D",1754596648609],[241,242,243,244,245,246],[193],"bf3490fc-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","EXAMPLE.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-5a19f3cec89b",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Sample Val Town Blog Post\ndescription: This is a sample blog post that demonstrates how to create content for the Val Town Blog.\npubDate: 2025-03-29T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Val Town Team\n---\n\nThis is a sample blog post that demonstrates how to create content for the Val Town Blog.\n\nTo add a new post to the Val Town Blog:\n\n1. Create a markdown file in the `/posts` directory\n2. Add YAML frontmatter with title, description, pubDate, and author\n3. The post will automatically appear on the homepage\n\n## Markdown Support\n\nThe blog supports GitHub Flavored Markdown features:\n\n### Code Blocks with Syntax Highlighting\n\n```typescript\nfunction hello() {\n console.log(\"Hello, Val Town!\");\n}\n```\n\n### Tables\n\n| Feature | Supported |\n|---------|-----------|\n| Tables | ✅ |\n| Lists | ✅ |\n| Code | ✅ |\n\n### Lists\n\n- Item 1\n- Item 2\n- Item 3\n\n### Images\n\nImages can be included using markdown syntax.\n\n## Conclusion\n\nThis is just a sample post. The blog system automatically processes markdown files and displays them on the homepage.",[],[198,391],"c20a1d9a-73ca-11f0-8668-0224a6c84d84",["D",1754597512437],22,[],[198,33],"bf3489ea-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-07-30-vibe-code.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-562543acf9c7",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Vibe code is legacy code\ndescription: Code that nobody understands is tech debt\npubDate: 2025-07-30T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Steve Krouse\n---\n\nDespite [widespread](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/19/vibe-coding/) [confusion](https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/1/not-vibe-coding/), Andrej Karpathy [coined \"vibe coding\"](https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383?lang=en) as a kind of AI-assisted coding where you **\"forget that the code even exists.\"**\n\n## Legacy code\n\nWe already have a phrase for code that nobody understands: **legacy code**.\n\nLegacy code is universally despised, and for good reason. But why? You have the code, right? Can't you figure it out from there?\n\nWrong. Code that nobody understands is tech debt. It takes a lot of time to understand unfamiliar code enough to debug it, let alone introduce new features without also introducing bugs.\n\nProgramming is fundamentally [_theory building_](https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf), not producing lines of code. We know this. This is why we make fun of business people who try to measure developer productivity in lines of code.\n\nWhen you vibe code, you are incurring tech debt as fast as the LLM can spit it out. Which is why vibe coding is _perfect_ for prototypes and throwaway projects: It's only legacy code if you have to maintain it!\n\n## Prototypes & throwaway code\n\nI've happily vibe coded apps to:\n\n- [Calculate weekly growth rates](https://growth.val.run/)\n- [Rate NYT Connections](https://www.val.town/x/stevekrouse/rate-connections)\n- [Propose to my fiance](https://stevekrouse.com/proposal)\n\nI don't needed to continue developing those apps, so it hasn't been a problem that I don't understand their code. These apps are also very small, which means that I haven't incurred that much debt if I need to jump in and read the code at some point. I was able to vibe code these apps way faster than I could've built them, and it was a blast.\n\n## Vibe coding is a spectrum\n\nVibe coding is on a spectrum of how much you understand the code. The more you understand, the less you are vibing.\n\n![shapes at 25-07-30 10.32.53.png](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/a93f8e81-c9b8-4277-6d19-525d2b8d5400/public)\n\nSimply by being an engineer and asking for a web app with a persistent database, you are already vibing less than than a non-programmer who asks for an \"app\" without understanding the distinction between a web app and a native app, or how persistent data storage works.\n\n## Giving a credit card to a child\n\nThe worst possible situation is to have a non-programmer vibe code a large project that they intend to maintain. This would be the equivalent of giving a credit card to a child without first explaining the concept of debt.\n\nAs you can imagine, the first phase is ecstatic. _I can wave this little piece of plastic in stores and take whatever I want!_\n\nWhich is a lot like _AI can build anything now! Nobody needs to learn how to code! Look at what it just made for me!_\n\nBut if you wait a month, you'll get the credit card bill. _Did I actually need to buy all those things? How will I get myself out of this hole?_\n\nIt's similar for the vibe coder. _My code broken. What do all these files and folders even do? How will I ever get this fixed? Can I get a refund for the $400 I spent vibe coding?_\n\nIf you don't understand the code, your only recourse is to ask AI to fix it for you, which is like paying off credit card debt with another credit card.\n\n## Serious coding with AI in 2025\n\nIf you're building something serious that you intend to maintain in 2025, Andrej has the right of it:\n\n> [Keep] a very tight leash on this new over-eager junior intern savant with encyclopedic knowledge of software, but who also bullshits you all the time, has an over-abundance of courage and shows little to no taste for good code. And emphasis on being slow, defensive, careful, paranoid, and on always taking the inline learning opportunity, not delegating.\n>\n> — Andrej Karpathy, [twitter](https://x.com/karpathy/status/1915581920022585597)\n\n## How we approach building for AI\n\nAt Val Town, we've built AI into our product in dozens of ways. [Townie](https://townie.val.run/) is our AI asisstant that agentically reads & writes code, runs it, views the logs, and keeps iterating until it's done.\n\n[Townie](https://townie.val.run/) is an awesome tool for vibe coding. I heartily recommend it to folks who understand these tradeoffs. I use it to vibe code sometimes. Other times I keep in on a tight leash as it makes surgical edits to a project I care about. Both are fun and useful.\n\nCoding with AI is changing so quickly that it's hard to know what tomorrow will bring, but I'm confident that theory building will remain central to the activity of building complex software. Our technical expertise will still be relevant! And I'm optimistic that AI will continue to make programming better in suprising ways.\n\nBut if you know any non-programmers spending thousands of dollars vibe coding their billion dollar app idea today, please send them this post. Vibe coding is not going to get them where they want to go. They're going to have to learn to use their human eyes to read the code 😱, and learn that sometimes it's easier to start over with building a well-written code base from scratch than to fix a legacy one that nobody understands.\n\n---\n\n_This essay is a distillation of a talk I gave last month, [The Role of the Human Brain in Programming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WC8dxMC4Xw). Thanks to my fiance Emily for listening to me rant about these topics for months, and for filming my talk. Thanks Malte and Rippling for hosting the talk._\n\n_Thanks Geoffrey Litt, Jimmy Koppel, Max McDonnell, Tom MacWright, Charmaine Lee, Brent Jackson, and Dan Shipper for feedback on this post. Thanks Simon Willison and Andrej Karpathy for being voices of reason amidst all the AI hype and naysayers._",[],[198,403],"bf34853a-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-06-11-townie-credits.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-539424819f9b",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Introducing Townie Credits\ndescription: Townie is now pay-per-use\npubDate: 2025-06-11T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Steve Krouse\n---\n\nToday, we are introducing a new credits payment system for\n[Townie](https://townie.val.run/), our AI coding assistant. Townie is now\npay-per-use. Here's the upside:\n\n1. You can use Townie as much as you want – no limits\n2. Townie is now priced independently from\n [Val Town Pro](http://val.town/pricing), which makes it cheaper for casual\n Townie users\n3. Townie becomes sustainable\n4. We at Val Town get a clearer signal about how much to invest in making Townie\n better\n\n## How credits work\n\nWe charge a 50% markup on top of raw LLM costs. If you use $10 in Townie\ncredits, Anthropic will get $6.66 and we'll get $3.33. We think this is fair,\nsustainable, and transparent. We don't want to be in the business of having\nmurky limits, obfuscated credits, or unsustainable margins.\n\nWhen you pay for Townie, you're telling us in the clearest way possible to\ncontinue to invest in Townie. If you don't think Townie is worth the cost, there\nare\n[many wonderful AI coding alternatives that you can use with the new\nVal Town CLI](https://docs.val.town/quickstarts/prompting/#local-development).\nWe want you to choose Townie on its merits, not because it's subsidized.\n\n## Start coding with Townie\n\nWe think Townie is one of the best coding assistants out there. It uses agentic\ntool-calling, powered by Claude 4 Sonnet, to read and write your code. It can\neven make test HTTP calls and inspect logs & traces to see how things are\nworking, and keep iterating from there. Paired with Val Town's instant (100ms)\nfull-stack deploys, Townie is one of the fastest ways to create a deployed app.\n\n

\n \n

\n\nWe hope you give it a shot, and are very eager to hear what you think.\n\nStart coding with Townie here: [val.town/townie](https://townie.val.run/)\n\nps - Townie is\n[100% open-source & is hosted on Val Town](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/Townie)",[],[198,410],"bf346e24-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-06-03-newsletter-25.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-4cc4f4989468",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Newsletter 25\ndescription: Mutli-file vals, local development, new Townie, new Search, and much more\npubDate: 2025-06-03T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Steve Krouse\n---\n\nVal Town has gotten a lot more powerful. \n\nVals now support multiple files, folders, and branches. You can edit vals locally with your favorite editor via the `vt` CLI. Townie, our AI coding assistant, uses Claude 4 Sonnet to agentically read and write your vals. We've been supporting companies using Val Town to automate workflows and build internal tools.\n\nOur roadmap is packed with the powerful features you've been requesting: Team Accounts, SOC2, Logs & Traces API, OAuth, and much more.\n\nAs always, we save the best part of the newsletter for last: a collection of the best new vals from all of you in the community 🤩\n\n## 🗂️ Multi-file Vals\n\nWe rebuilt vals from the ground-up to support multiple files and folders. Vals are now like GitHub repos – including branches and pull requests – but the code is instantly deployed, and scales as hosted web services. We rebuilt [Townie](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/Townie), [Search](https://www.val.town/x/maxm/vtProjectSearch), and even [this very blog you're reading right now](/migration) as vals.\n\n

\n \n

\n\nAs show in this video above, vals now support:\n\n- Multiple files & folders\n- Branches, three-way merges, and pull requests\n- Custom [subdomains](https://docs.val.town/vals/http/custom-subdomains/) & [email addresses](https://docs.val.town/vals/email/#custom-email-address)\n\n## 🦾 New Townie\n\nWe rebuilt Townie from the ground-up around multi-file vals. It uses agentic tool-calling, powered by Claude 4 Sonnet, to read and write your code. It can even make test HTTP calls to see how things are working, and keep iterating from there.\n\n

\n \n

\n\nTownie is available only for [Val Town Pro](https://www.val.town/pricing) users during a limited free preview. We are adding the ability to purchase credits.\n\nBecause Townie was built [100% open-source and in userspace](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/Townie), you can read the code, system prompts, and even remix & run it in your account. Pull requests welcome.\n\n## ＞ Local development\n\nOne of the biggest feature request for Val Town has always been to edit vals with your favorite editor. Now you can with the [`vt` CLI](https://github.com/val-town/vt).\n\n

\n \n

\n\nThe `vt watch` command brings the classic Val Town deploy-on-every-save experience to your favorite IDE. (Especially with [the browser extension that automatically reloads your browser tab](https://github.com/val-town/vt?tab=readme-ov-file#watching-for-changes).) However, that doesn't mean you're deploying to *production* on every save. As shown in the video above, Val Town means you're always developing directly in your *production environment*, but you choose when to deploy directly on `main` or in a branch preview that you can merge in when ready.\n\n## Val Town for Teams\n\nIf you think Val Town is useful in your personal life, wait till you bring it to work! Our customers have saved hundreds of hours building custom tools like:\n\n- **[GitHub x Slack Automations](https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/GitHub-PR-Automation)**: Auto-assign PRs, enforce labels, streamline PR approvals, and surface GitHub issues in Slack.\n- **[Hubspot Leads Deep Research](https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/Hubspot-Research)**: Generate AI deep research-powered reports on new HubSpot leads. Optionally convert them into audio feeds for on-the-go listening.\n- **[Discord → Linear Tickets](https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/Discord-to-Linear)**: React to messages with a designated emoji to instantly create a Linear ticket, with full context.\n- **[Changelog Generator](https://www.val.town/x/charmaine/Change-Logs-Generator)**: Auto-generate changelogs from GitHub commits and share them in Discord for review before publishing.\n\n**We'd love to help you too!** Our Val Town for Teams plan includes private VIP support on Slack Connect, hands-on help building custom workflows and onboarding your team, and higher limits across the board.\n\n

💌 Email charmaine@val.town to save your team hours every week.

\n\n## New Search\n\nWe rebuilt [Val Town Search](https://www.val.town/x/maxm/vtProjectSearch) for the multi-file vals. It's much faster and gives exact matches. (It runs on [Val Town SQLite](https://docs.val.town/std/sqlite/), and uses `like`.) It searches across public val source code, usernames, and our docs.\n\n

\n\nSearch was built [100% open-source & in userspace](https://www.val.town/x/maxm/vtProjectSearch). With one-click, you can remix it to your account: it'll start reading from the public val firehose API, and index all public val code into your [Val Town SQLite](https://docs.val.town/std/sqlite/). If you want to make an improvement to search, or build something on top of that index, please do! The power of userspace 💪\n\n## Town Hall\n\nWe held our very first Val Town Hall!\n\n\n\nWe got a chance to share what we're building at Val Town, and see 9 lovely demos from the community. Everybody really pulled together to make it an action-packed hour. If you're curious to know what's going on in the town, this is a must-watch.\n\n### Val Town Hall #2\n\nWe scheduled the next Val Town Hall for **June 25th, 12pm ET**. **[Register here to participate or demo.](https://town-hall.val.run/)**\n\n## Roadmap\n\n- Logs & Traces API (to power `vt tail` & Townie reading logs)\n- UI improvements branch & pull request flows\n- UI improvements to Logs\n- Deno LSP to dramatically improve the browser editing experience\n- Townie credits & other improvements\n- UI improvements to val version history\n- Team Accounts\n- \"Login with Val Town\" OAuth\n- SOC2\n- Ability to lock/protect a main branch\n- Comments on vals (again, but better, ie on lines)\n- Comments on pull requests\n- Improve the discoverability of vals\n- Binary file support in vals\n- Infinite scale vals with usage-based pricing\n- WebSocket vals\n- UI & keyboard affordances to help you import from Val Town, npm, jsr\n\n## 🌟 Community Vals\n- [**Geoffrey Litt**](https://www.val.town/u/geoffreylitt)'s [Stevens](https://www.val.town/x/geoffreylitt/stevensDemo) went viral on HackerNews. It's a personal AI Assistant, you can read more about how he built it on [his blog](https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/04/12/how-i-made-a-useful-ai-assistant-with-one-sqlite-table-and-a-handful-of-cron-jobs). \n- [**Brad Noble**](https://www.val.town/u/bradnoble) made [Val Town for Notion](https://www.val.town/x/bradnoble/ValTownForNotion), a great demo accompanied by a post about using Val Town to unlock Notion’s full potential, and vice versa.\n- [**Fiberplane**](https://www.val.town/u/fiberplane) made [OpenTelemetryCollector](https://www.val.town/x/fiberplane/OpenTelemetryCollector), which receive traces and store it in SQLite.\n- [**bgschiller**](https://www.val.town/u/bgschiller) made [personalShopper](https://www.val.town/x/bgschiller/personalShopper/), which turns any grocery list into a Kroger cart full of groceries.\n- [**Moe**](https://www.val.town/u/moe) made [MiniAppStarter](https://www.val.town/x/moe/MiniAppStarter), a Hono + React + Tailwind + Farcaster Mini App Starter Project. This has taken off in the Farcaster community and we've been seeing lots of new mini apps! You can find other Farcaster starters directly on [moe's profile](https://www.val.town/u/moe).\n- [**Smirfolio**](https://www.val.town/u/smirfolio) made [petitPrince](https://www.val.town/x/smirfolio/petitPrince), a child-friendly article summarizer.\n- [**tmcw**](https://www.val.town/u/tmcw) made [timeline](https://www.val.town/x/tmcw/timeline), an online card game for 2+ players: draw historical‑event cards and race to slot them into the correct timeline.\n- [**Wolf**](https://www.val.town/u/wolf) made [FileDumpThing](https://www.val.town/x/wolf/FileDumpThing) so you can easily share files and text snippets by pasting or uploading them and getting a URL in return. This is very handy for dropping gifs into val READMEs.\n- [**Michael Schultz**](https://www.val.town/u/michaelwschultz) made [eink-frame](https://www.val.town/x/michaelwschultz/eink-frame) for information screens designed to be shown on an e-ink display.\n- [**Wilhelm**](https://www.val.town/u/wilhelm) made [ProtoRuns](https://www.val.town/x/wilhelm/ProtoRuns), which lets you track and store your physical runs on ATProto.\n- [**Loading**](https://www.val.town/u/loading) made [url-project](https://www.val.town/x/loading/url-project), a simple URL shortener application built on Val Town.\n- [**c15r**](https://www.val.town/u/c15r) made [ProtoShare](https://www.val.town/x/c15r/ProtoShare), a secure backend system for iOS share sheet shortcuts.\n- [**Cam Pak**](https://www.val.town/u/cameronpak) made [voicemessages](https://www.val.town/x/cameronpak/voicemessages), a web app for recording, transcribing, and sharing voice notes with expiration controls.\n- [**Salon**](https://www.val.town/u/salon) made [mandate](https://www.val.town/x/salon/mandate), a val that helps you set up AI agents through a registry and workflow definitions.\n- [**Wolf**](https://www.val.town/u/wolf) made [Electric](https://www.val.town/x/wolf/Electric), a lightweight static site hosting system built on Hono RPC and Val Town blob store, with a simple CLI.\n- [**supagroova**](https://www.val.town/u/supagroova) made [LiveStormMCP](https://www.val.town/x/supagroova/LiveStormMCP), a val that is hosting a Livestorm MCP server.\n- [**Malcolm Ocean**](https://www.val.town/u/malcolmocean) made [FlexCal](https://www.val.town/x/malcolmocean/FlexCal), a flexible Google Calendar alternative interface that syncs 2 way with Google Calendar via OAuth.\n- [**Max**](https://www.val.town/u/maxm) made [esm](https://www.val.town/x/maxm/esm), a fast content-type friendly proxy for esm.town.\n- [**Alex Wein**](https://www.val.town/u/alexwein) made [gordwame](https://www.val.town/x/alexwein/gordwame), a word game.\n- [**nucky**](https://www.val.town/u/nucky) made [book-lookup-notion](https://www.val.town/x/nucky/book-lookup-notion), which uses the Google Book API to look up bibliographic metadata elements. The val thumnail is a great gif.\n- [**chadparker**](https://www.val.town/u/chadparker) made [endpoints](https://www.val.town/x/chadparker/endpoints) for interacting with Notion DB.\n- [**artivilla**](https://www.val.town/u/artivilla) made [fren](https://www.val.town/x/artivilla/fren), an app for browsing, searching, and copying AI prompts, similar to [ray.so/prompts/browser](https://ray.so/prompts/browser).\n- [**probablycorey**](https://www.val.town/u/probablycorey) (who started Atom and Electron at GitHub!) made [mini-remix](https://www.val.town/x/probablycorey/mini-remix), which lets you write server side and client side react code in the same file and render it to a val.\n- [**ije**](https://www.val.town/u/ije) made [mono-jsx](https://www.val.town/x/ije/mono-jsx/main.tsx), mono-jsx just works on Val Town!\n- [**boucher**](https://www.val.town/u/boucher) made [vt-discord](https://www.val.town/x/boucher/vt-discord), which stores your chats and shared links on a private server, and lets Claude AI search and analyze them.\n- [**dcm31**](https://www.val.town/u/dcm31) made [logoWorkshopOpenMoji](https://www.val.town/x/dcm31/logoWorkshopOpenMoji), an SDK to generate logos directly in code.\n- [**Wolf**](https://www.val.town/u/wolf) made [NPLLM](https://www.val.town/x/wolf/NPLLM), a clone of the npm website with search functionality, package detail pages, and the ability to download npm packages as tar files.\n- [**dcm31**](https://www.val.town/u/dcm31) made [demoCamera](https://www.val.town/x/dcm31/demoCamera), a floating webcam component that you can easily add to any val.\n- [**prashamtrivedi**](https://www.val.town/u/prashamtrivedi) made [promptfixer](https://www.val.town/x/prashamtrivedi/promptfixer), a prompt fixing service with form and email processing.\n- [**elouan**](https://www.val.town/u/elouan) made [oceaniverse](https://www.val.town/x/elouan/oceaniverse), a [pondiverse](https://www.val.town/x/todepond/pondiverse) store.\n- [**bradley**](https://www.val.town/u/bradley) made [litebrite](https://www.val.town/x/bradley/litebrite), a little web‑app version of the classic Lite‑Brite toy.\n- [**Steve Krouse**](https://www.val.town/u/stevekrouse) made [live-reload](https://www.val.town/x/stevekrouse/live-reload), middleware for live-reloading HTTP vals during development. (We use it to edit this blog!)\n- [**gwoods22**](https://www.val.town/u/gwoods22) made [cp24-digest](https://www.val.town/x/gwoods22/cp24-digest), a val that manages [CP24](https://www.cp24.com/) email alerts by recieving them, storing them in a blob, and displaying them here.\n- [**Nico Baier**](https://www.val.town/u/nbbaier) made [thirdTimer](https://www.val.town/x/nbbaier/thirdTimer), a web app implementing the \"Third Time\" productivity method. [neverstew](https://www.val.town/u/neverstew) [remixed it](https://www.val.town/x/neverstew/thirdTimer) with visual displays.\n- [**pomdtr**](https://www.val.town/u/pomdtr) made [tinyfeed](https://www.val.town/x/pomdtr/tinyfeed), which generate a static HTML page from a collection of feeds.\n- [**thirdsouth**](https://www.val.town/u/thirdsouth) made [Mercury](https://www.val.town/x/thirdsouth/Mercury), which connects Mercury's Bank API to Slack so you can check account balance, view recent transactions, get notifications etc directly in Slack.\n- [**cmknz**](https://www.val.town/u/cmknz) made [maine-bills-tax](https://www.val.town/x/cmknz/maine-bills-tax), which summarizes all of the current pending bills that could impact taxes in the State of Maine.\n- [**kamalnrf**](https://www.val.town/u/kamalnrf) made [MailGoat](https://www.val.town/x/kamalnrf/MailGoat), which automatically organizes your emails with custom labels.\n- [**Wolf**](https://www.val.town/u/wolf) made [instagramScraping](https://www.val.town/x/wolf/instagramScraping), which extracts image and caption data from Instagram posts.\n- [**colingourlay**](https://www.val.town/u/colingourlay) made [supernote-crosswords](https://www.val.town/x/colingourlay/supernote-crosswords), which uploads daily crosswords to your Supernote.\n- [**humbl**](https://www.val.town/u/humbl) made [figma-variables-manager](https://www.val.town/x/humbl/figma-variables-manager), a Figma plugin that syncs variables from external sources like Notion and Coda.\n- [**dcm31**](https://www.val.town/u/dcm31) made [build.moi](https://build.moi/), a social showcase for your Val Town vals, like TikTok but Val Town! ([YouTube demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXomaA4hYY))\n- [**yakuzadave**](https://www.val.town/u/yakuzadave) made [notionWidgets](https://www.val.town/x/yakuzadave/notionWidgets), a way to be able to host your own Notion Widgets using Val Town.\n- [**jpchip**](https://www.val.town/u/jpchip) made [GlobalEntryAppointmentChecker](https://www.val.town/x/jpchip/GlobalEntryAppointmentChecker), which emails you when global entry appointments are available.\n- [**nucky**](https://www.val.town/u/nucky) made [notion-2-bluesky](https://www.val.town/x/nucky/notion-2-bluesky), which lets you auto-schedule Bluesky posts from a Notion DB.\n- [**Llad**](https://www.val.town/u/Llad) made [Gardenon](https://www.val.town/x/Llad/Gardenon), to help map your garden and track information about each plant.\n- [**Steve Krouse**](https://www.val.town/u/stevekrouse) made [profile-pics](https://www.val.town/x/stevekrouse/profile-pics), a Val Town Profile Pic Proxy.\n- [**stu43005**](https://www.val.town/u/stu43005) made [hololiveAnniversaryIcs](https://www.val.town/x/stu43005/hololiveAnniversaryIcs), for tracking anniversary dates for Hololive (a virtual YouTuber agency).\n- [**jamiedubs**](https://www.val.town/u/jamiedubs) made [twitterCompetitorMonitoring](https://www.val.town/x/jamiedubs/twitterCompetitorMonitoring) to track tweets mentioning competitor URLs and visualizes the data in charts.\n- [**We at Val Town**](https://www.val.town/u/valdottown) made [door](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/door) for Val Town office guests to open the door through their phone, like [this](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/door/pull/ef854848-34b0-11f0-9887-9e149126039e)!\n- [**Joey Hiller**](https://www.val.town/u/jhiller) made [ValTown-Package-Tracker](https://www.val.town/x/jhiller/ValTown-Package-Tracker) to track a package of sensors he was sending from Oakland to us in Downtown Brooklyn!\n- [**dinavinter**](https://www.val.town/u/dinavinter) made [slack](https://www.val.town/x/dinavinter/slack), a Slack bot that uses OpenAI to generate responses.\n- [**prashamtrivedi**](https://www.val.town/u/prashamtrivedi) made [hn-remote-ts-genai-jobs](https://www.val.town/x/prashamtrivedi/hn-remote-ts-genai-jobs), to track Hacker News' Who's Hiring filter for remote TypeScript + GenAI-related jobs.\n- [**dcm31**](https://www.val.town/u/dcm31) made [rotrank](https://www.val.town/x/dcm31/rotrank), an ELO ranking system for popular Italian Brainrot characters.\n- [**tmcw**](https://www.val.town/u/tmcw) made [bluesky-thinkup-tribute](https://www.val.town/x/tmcw/bluesky-thinkup-tribute), so you can know when people you follow update their descriptions on Bluesky.\n- [**Alex Brinsmead**](https://www.val.town/u/abrinz) made [autonomous-val](https://www.val.town/x/abrinz/autonomous-val), a demo on how to build autonomous agents on Val Town that can be triggered by API calls, cron jobs, etc.\n- [**pomdtr**](https://www.val.town/u/pomdtr) made [extract-feeds](https://www.val.town/x/pomdtr/extract-feeds) to extract RSS feeds from an HTML page.\n- [**curtcox**](https://www.val.town/u/curtcox) made [wwtdotcom](https://www.val.town/x/curtcox/wwtdotcom), a proxy for wwt.com that rewrites all links to stay within the proxy and injects a help widget on every page.\n- [**ashryanio**](https://www.val.town/u/ashryanio) made [halpk](https://www.val.town/x/ashryanio/halpk), which fetches the RSS feed from Astoria Tech's Subcurrent blog and displays a random blog post each time the page is loaded. He also made [subcurrentShuffle](https://www.val.town/x/ashryanio/subcurrentShuffle) with Townie in 15 minutes at that same meetup!\n- [**Cam Pak**](https://www.val.town/u/cameronpak) made [groq-api](https://www.val.town/x/cameronpak/groq-api), a simple API using the AI SDK and Groq.\n- [**mgmarlow**](https://www.val.town/u/mgmarlow) made [aposd-red-flags](https://www.val.town/x/mgmarlow/aposd-red-flags), a simple flashcard app to help learn about common software design red flags from the book A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout.\n- [**JJG**](https://www.val.town/u/jjg) made [blockbench-plugin](https://www.val.town/x/jjg/blockbench-plugin), which fetches JavaScript or TypeScript files from GitHub repositories or Gists and serves them with the proper content type headers.\n- [**Steve Krouse**](https://www.val.town/u/stevekrouse) made [luciaMagicLinkStarter](https://www.val.town/x/stevekrouse/luciaMagicLinkStarter) to roll-your-own auth & magic link login using Lucia.\n- [**Max**](https://www.val.town/u/maxm) made [sqlitelogs](https://www.val.town/x/maxm/sqlitelogs), a logging system that stores logs in SQLite with a web interface and search functionality.\n- [**orjpap**](https://www.val.town/u/orjpap) made a blog analytics system using Val Town's SQLite to track visitors and page views.\n- [**Payton**](https://www.val.town/u/payton) made [Privy Pay](https://privy.io/blog/onchain-payments-with-privy-pay), a tap to pay experience with Farcaster mini apps using NFC technology.\n- [**yawnxyz**](https://www.val.town/u/yawnxyz) made [andp](https://www.val.town/x/yawnxyz/andp/index.tsx), a demo of embedding Observable in Val Town.\n- [**neverstew**](https://www.val.town/u/neverstew) made [voweltown](https://www.val.town/x/neverstew/voweltown), an interactive website to explore vowels across different languages.",[],[198,417],"bf3468ac-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-05-23-glitch.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-4b26446efa94",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Val Town for Glitch Users\ndescription: Saying goodbye to a platform we admired\npubDate: 2025-05-23T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Tom MacWright\n---\n\nThe [news yesterday is that Glitch is shutting down](https://blog.glitch.com/post/changes-are-coming-to-glitch/).\nVal Town has always been inspired by Glitch - they paved the way\nfor zero-configuration instantly-edited websites.\nIt's a bummer that what brought so many people joy\nand [was a great community for diverse communities](https://blog.keith.is/blog/the-end-of-glitch-even-though-they-say-it-isnt/)\nis coming to an end.\n\nSo: where does Val Town fit into this? Depending on how you were\nusing Glitch, we could be a new home for you. But Val Town isn't a drop-in\nreplacement for Glitch, and I am no macabre salesperson so here's the basics:\n\n## Val Town is for TypeScript projects\n\nWe support static text files, TypeScript projects that work on the backend\nand the frontend, and frameworks like React. There are lots of batteries built-in:\nsending and receiving emails, an SQLite, blob storage, scheduling code\nto run, and all of the functionality unlocked by importing modules from\nNPM.\n\nGlitch also supported static websites, as well as bundlers, like Vite. We don't\nsupport those things right now, so stuff won't transfer over automatically.\n\n## Val Town supports online editing and instant reload\n\nNow that's the part where it matches: we have invested a lot of time into our\neditor and site so that it's easy to do everything you need to without\ninstalling any extra software. But we _also_ support a great desktop\nflow with our [beta vt tool](https://github.com/val-town/vt), so if you\nlike using VS Code or Cursor, there's a home for you here.\n\n## Val Town is also a startup\n\nI've been around for a while. Startups are hard to rely on. There's no way I'm\ngoing to promise that your Val Town projects will still work in the year 2500,\nbecause we both know that I'd be lying. Like Glitch, we've raised money from\nventure capital and it is currently what pays our paychecks and server bills.\nIf it runs out and we haven't become profitable or found an acquirer, that'll\nbe curtains.\n\nWith that out of the way, I can tell you two things. First, Val Town is really\nefficient. From day one, we've been building on abstractions that let us run\ncode cheaply at scale. Stuff that's magically good, like [Deno](https://deno.com/), and\nwasn't available when Glitch was getting started. So keeping the lights on in\na technical sense is not a huge concern: we aren't provisioning a whole server\nevery time that you run a val.\n\nAnd with that, we've also got a pretty long runway, given those low costs, so\nwe've got some time to get our accounting in the black: and we fully intend\nto become profitable. We're currently working hard to find design partners,\nbuilt out our paid offerings, and make sure that we aren't burning CPU\ncycles on anything unnecessary.\n\n## Give it a shot\n\nI hope that a commonality between Glitch and Val Town is that we're both\n_fun_. So anyway, if you're leaving Glitch or just looking to tinker with code\nin a way that feels lightweight, casual, and joyful, [give Val Town a shot](https://www.val.town/).",[],[198,424],"bf3463a2-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-04-23-upgrading.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-4605d3c9de4b",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: Upgrading vals\ndescription: Vals are being upgraded to support multiple files, folders, and more\npubDate: 2025-04-23T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Steve Krouse\n---\n\nToday, we’re unifying our two primitives — *vals* and *projects* — into a single primitive: the **val**, with the best features of both.\n\nHistorically, vals have been simple and lightweight, but limited to a single file. This upgrade will preserve the elegant spirit of our platform while supporting more complex code and collaborative workflows. This upgrade will help you create bigger things on Val Town – APIs, internal tools, fullstack apps, blogs ([like this one](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/blog)), and much more – without sacrificing the simplicity you've always loved about vals.\n\n*Legacy vals* will temporarily become *projects* during this migration. Post-migration, the concept of *projects* will disappear entirely — leaving only upgraded *vals*. In short: *legacy vals* → *projects* → *vals*.\n\n## Timeline\n\nFor most users, no upgrade action is required. We’ll auto-migrate your vals next week. All existing HTTP endpoints, crons, email handlers, and custom domains will be preserved.\n\nFor those with mission-critical vals or who use our API to edit or create vals, you can start upgrading your legacy vals today and integrating with our updated API.\n\n- **April 23, 2025** – Announcement of changes & API deprecations.\n- **April 30, 2025** – All remaining *legacy vals* auto-upgraded. Deprecated API routes become read-only.\n- **May 1, 2025** – The term *projects* will no longer exist — everything will simply be a *val*.\n\nIf you need more time, please contact us at [help@val.town](mailto:help@val.town) and we'll work with you.\n\n## Upgrading\n\nWe will upgrade all remaining legacy vals on **April 30, 2025**.\n\nYou can proactively upgrade by:\n\n- Going to the **Settings** of any legacy val.\n- Clicking **Upgrade**.\n\n[See more details in our docs.](https://docs.val.town/upgrading/legacy-vals)\n\n## API Changes\n\nToday, we're introducing the following API routes:\n\n```bash\nGET /v2/vals\nPOST /v2/vals\nGET /v2/vals/{val_id} \nDELETE /v2/vals/{val_id}\nGET /v2/vals/{val_id}/branches/{branch_id}\nDELETE /v2/vals/{val_id}/branches/{branch_id}\nGET /v2/vals/{val_id}/branches\nPOST /v2/vals/{val_id}/branches\nGET /v2/vals/{val_id}/files\nPOST /v2/vals/{val_id}/files\nDELETE /v2/vals/{val_id}/files\nPUT /v2/vals/{val_id}/files\nGET /v2/vals/{val_id}/files/content\nGET /v2/alias/vals/{username}/{val_name}\nGET /v2/me/vals\n```\n\n_Note: During this transition, `{val_id}` is your `project ID`. You can grab it by clicking `Copy` > `Copy project ID` on any new val._\n\nWe are deprecating these routes:\n\n```bash\n* /v1/vals/*\n* /v1/projects/*\nGET /v1/alias/{username}/{val_name}\nGET /v1/alias/projects/{username}/{project_name}\nGET /v1/me/comments\nGET /v1/me/references\nGET /v1/me/likes\nGET /v1/me/projects\nGET /v1/users/{user_id}/vals\n```\n\nView our [updated API reference here](https://docs.val.town/openapi).\n\nAll `v1/vals` API routes become read-only on **April 30, 2025**. If you rely on *writing* to those routes, please upgrade to our new `v2/vals` API. All deprecated API routes will continue serving historical legacy val data.\n\n### SDK changes\nWe've also released a new major version of the [Val Town SDK](https://github.com/val-town/sdk/tree/main), `v1.0.0`, using these new endpoints. The deprecated routes above are not accessible in this new version of the SDK.\n\nUnpinned SDK imports will automatically pull the latest version upon your next edit / save. At that point, your SDK calls will temporarily break until you upgrade. To upgrade, update every mention of `projects` → `vals`, `projectName` → `valName`. \n\n## What's next\n\n1. Upgrade your mission-critical vals early.\n2. Update your Val Town API & SDK usage to `/v2` routes.\n3. All remaining legacy vals migrate on **April 30, 2025**.\n4. Migration completes on **May 1, 2025**.\n\nWe're committed to making this transition smooth for you — reach out anytime via [email](mailto:help@val.town) or [Discord](http://discord.val.town/) if you need assistance. We appreciate your help and patience through this migration.",[],[198,431],"bf345a60-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-04-08-migration.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-4007d8ee9fef",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: The Val Town Blog is now hosted on Val Town\ndescription: We migrated this blog to Val Town Projects\npubDate: 2025-04-08T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Steve Krouse\n---\n\n![street-blog-web.jpg](https://imagedelivery.net/iHX6Ovru0O7AjmyT5yZRoA/4abb41d0-f710-46b4-523e-4440a252f400/public)\n\nWe migrated our blog to Val Town 🥳\n\nWith some cleverness, we were able to build it and migrate 65 old blog posts in one day. Now our deployments happen instantly (~100ms), and we've greatly simplified our blogging stack.\n\n| | Before | Now |\n|---------------------|---------------------------|------------|\n| **Rendering** | Astro | React |\n| **Version control** | GitHub | Val Town |\n| **Text editing** | Local editor | Val Town |\n| **Deployment** | Cloudflare Pages + GitHub | Val Town |\n| **Hosting** | Cloudflare Pages | Val Town |\n| **CDN** | Cloudflare | Cloudflare |\n\n## Should you blog on Val Town? \n\nMaybe! It depends on your constraints and what matters to you. We care deeply about:\n\n1. Tight feedback loops\n2. Simple, browser-based workflows\n3. A fast migration\n\nWe also care deeply about dogfooding, but unless you're us – and unfortunately most of you aren't – that one doesn't apply to you.\n\nThere are also good reasons *not* to migrate to Val Town, but we'll get to them later.\n\n## Tight feedback loops\n\nWe at Val Town are obsessed with tight feedback loops. \n\n> \"Creators need an immediate connection to what they're creating.\"\n> \n> – Bret Victor, \"Inventing on Principle\"\n\nIn some ways, this singular commitment to tight feedback loops is what separates Val Town from all other code hosting & deployment platforms. We believe that you should be able to *iterate directly in your production environment*, not iterate locally, then deploy, then wait minutes to see how things look live.\n\n

\n \n

\n\nIn Val Town, a save *is* a deploy, and it happens in about 100ms. We go to great technical lengths to make this possible. This means no waiting minutes to see what your post looks like live. You get the fast local dev experience, but with production. And this goes for branches too. Every edit of every branch is instantly deployed in a shareable URL.\n\n## Simple, browser-based workflow\n\nVal Town lets you use fewer tools. It replaces:\n\n* your local text editor,\n* git + GitHub for version control\n* whatever you use for deployment and hosting, Cloudflare, Vercel, Render, Railway, Heroku, Digital Ocean, Hertzner, etc\n\nSimpler, browser-based workflows are particularly important for casual contributors, such as less technical folks on your team or strangers on the internet. Val Town is a single website for code to be edited, versioned, collaborated on, and deployed. No need for anyone to install or use git, clone the repo locally, install programming languages and dependencies, or use a local text editor. \n\nFor example, here's how to make a change to this blog that you're reading right now:\n\n

\n \n

\n\nVal Town is uniquely positioned to allow anyone see their changes deployed live in their remix, because we host both your source code *and* your deployments. \n\n## A fast migration\n\nHow did we migrate 65 blog posts – with images, videos, and intricate formatting and styles – to an entirely new blog in a single day?\n\nWe didn't. We left them where they are, and proxy to them.\n\nWriting a proxy in Val Town (or any functions platform with the ['fetch handler' interface](https://blog.val.town/blog/the-api-we-forgot-to-name/)) is a delight:\n\n```ts\nconst OLD_BLOG_HOST = \"https://val-town-blog.pages.dev/\";\nexport async function proxy(req: Request): Promise {\n const url = new URL(req.url);\n return fetch(OLD_BLOG_HOST + url.pathname + url.search, {\n method: req.method,\n headers: req.headers,\n });\n}\n```\n\nSo if you go to view [blog.val.town/blog/val-town-newsletter-24](https://blog.val.town/blog/val-town-newsletter-24)\nyou'll see exactly what you would at [val-town-blog.pages.dev/blog/val-town-newsletter-24](https://val-town-blog.pages.dev/blog/val-town-newsletter-24). I find it eerie that proxies work so well.\n\nWe've had reasonable success with this technique of migrating to Val Town quickly by proxying most old content, and only rebuilding the homepage and new posts. I first used this technique on my personal website, [stevekrouse.com](https://stevekrouse.com), and was pleased to see it continue to work here.\n\n## Good reasons *not* to blog on Val Town\n\n1. Val Town Projects are beta software, so you'd be on the cutting-edge alongside us. We're coming up with patterns that you'd get for free from mature blogging tools like Astro and Cloudflare Pages.\n2. Val Town doesn't have good workflows for bundlers or build steps, so it's hard to use anything that requires vite, etc.\n3. Val Town doesn't (yet) have pull request comments.\n\nPersonally, I value simplicity, so I don't mind building a basic blog from scratch without a bundler with some help from AI. I do miss pull requests comments though. We plan on building them soon.\n\n## Bad reasons *not* to blog on Val Town\n\n1. **Lock-in**. Val Town is built on Deno and web standards, so you can easily leave for another deployment platform like Cloudflare, Vercel, or Deno Deploy. We'll even help you migrate. We believe in the open web.\n\n2. **Price**. We have a generous free tier, so your blog can go viral on HN, get 100k hits in a day, and you pay $0. It's $10 / month for 1m code runs per day. Need additional scale beyond that? It's still $10 / month while our Scale Plan is in beta. When ready, our scale pricing will be in line with other FaaS providers.\n\n## Get yourself a Val Town blog\n\nIf you are starting a new blog from scratch, remix [this markdown blog starter](https://www.val.town/x/stevekrouse/markdownBlogStarter).\n\nIf you are migrating an existing blog, feel free to remix [the Val Town blog](https://www.val.town/x/valdottown/blog). It comes with good patterns for proxying to old content.",[],[198,438],"bf345722-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","2025-04-02-post-mortem-db-migration.md","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-3eecaa9c3f08",["D",1754596648609],"---\ntitle: \"Post-mortem: A Backward Incompatible Database Migration\"\ndescription: Val runs failed due to a database migration that was not backward compatible\npubDate: 2025-04-02T00:00:00.000Z\nauthor: Sophie Houser\n---\n\nToday at 10:11am we experienced a 12-minute outage, which caused HTTP vals to return 503 errors and other types of vals to fail. In the end, the root cause was a deployment timing issue where database migrations were deployed successfully, but our application code deployment hung for several minutes. The new database migrations were incompatible with the old application code and crashed the process. \n\nWe aim to make all database migrations maintain backward compatibility, but in this case, we only discovered through the delayed deployment feedback that the new migrations were not compatible with previous versions.\n\n## Timeline\n\n- **10:11AM ET** - We merged the new migration and application code\n- **10:16AM ET** - We got pinged for downtime\n- **10:17AM ET** - We posted that HTTP vals are down in the new #service-status channel\n- **10:18AM ET** - The new application code deployment was still lagging\n- **10:19AM ET** - We rolled back to an earlier deployment on Render, which Render rejected because the earlier migration had succeeded, so the ‘old migration’ check prevented it from entering production.\n- **10:22AM ET** - We pushed something we thought could be a fix\n- **10:28AM ET** - We notified everyone that we’re back up.\n\n## Impact\n\n- HTTP vals returned 503 errors for ~12 minutes, and all other val types did not run.\n- The [val.town](http://val.town) site remained up.\n\n## Next Steps\n\nReliability is important to us and we’ve taken steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We’ve added a test to ensure database migrations are backward compatible, which we’ll run before we deploy any new code that includes database migrations.",[],[198,445],["D",1754596648609],[231,232,233,234,235,236,237,238,239],[198],"bf345416-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","util.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-35b26b2e2bbc",["D",1754596648609],"export function formatDate(dateString: string): string {\n try {\n const date = new Date(dateString);\n return date.toLocaleDateString('en-US', {\n year: 'numeric',\n month: 'long',\n day: 'numeric'\n });\n } catch (e) {\n return dateString;\n }\n}\n\nexport function dayOfWeek(dateString: string): string {\n try {\n return new Date(dateString).toLocaleDateString(\"en-US\", {\n weekday: \"short\",\n });\n } catch (e) {\n return \"\";\n }\n}\n",[],[203,455],"bf344cd2-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","icons.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-331f3f65c8b9",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\n\nexport function RSSIcon (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n \n \n );\n}\n\nexport function TwitterIcon (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n );\n}\n\nexport function GitHubIcon (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n );\n}\n\nexport function BlueskyIcon (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n );\n}\n\nexport function DiscordIcon (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n );\n}\n\n",[],[203,462],"bf344b60-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","SocialLinks.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-2eebdf744720",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { BlueskyIcon, DiscordIcon, GitHubIcon, RSSIcon, TwitterIcon } from \"./icons.tsx\";\n\nexport default function SocialLinks() {\n return (\n

\n \n View source\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n

\n );\n}",[],[203,469],"bf34453e-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","OGImage.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-28189bc55bd2",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport wrap from \"https://esm.sh/word-wrap@1.2.5\";\n\nconst LINE_HEIGHT = 72;\n\nexport default function OGImage({\n title = \"Val Town Blog\",\n ...props\n}: React.SVGProps & {\n title?: string;\n}) {\n const wrapped = wrap(title, { width: 44 });\n const lines = wrapped.split(/\\n/g);\n\n return (\n \n \n {lines.map((line, i) => (\n \n {line}\n \n ))}\n\n \n\n \n Blog\n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n );\n}",[],[203,476],"bf343db4-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","LogoMark.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-27bb3e8823d8",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\n\nexport default function(props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n \n \n );\n}\n\nexport function Favicon(props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n \n \n \n );\n}",[],[203,483],"bf3433a0-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","Logo.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-2293996c97f7",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\n\nexport default function (props: React.SVGProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n \n );\n}\n",[],[203,490],"bf342ef0-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","Layout.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-1db69b3f4f7d",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport React from \"https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0\";\nimport type { BlogPost } from \"../utils/types.ts\";\nimport Footer from \"./Footer.tsx\";\nimport Head from \"./Head.tsx\";\nimport Logo from \"./Logo.tsx\";\nimport LogoMark from \"./LogoMark.tsx\";\nimport SocialLinks from \"./SocialLinks.tsx\";\n\ninterface LayoutProps {\n title: string;\n children: React.ReactNode;\n post?: BlogPost;\n}\n\nexport function Layout({ title, post, children }: LayoutProps) {\n return (\n \n \n \n

\n \n \n \n

\n \n

\n \n Blog\n \n

\n {children}\n

\n \n \n );\n}",[],[203,497],"bf342bf8-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","HomePage.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-186778afd76d",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport React from \"https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0\";\nimport { BlogPost } from \"../utils/types.ts\";\nimport { Layout } from \"./Layout.tsx\";\nimport Byline from \"./Byline.tsx\";\n\nexport function HomePage({ posts }: { posts: BlogPost[] }) {\n const latest = posts.at(0);\n const top = posts.slice(1, 3);\n const rest = posts.slice(3);\n\n return (\n \n

\n Latest\n

\n \n {latest.title}\n \n

\n \n

{latest.description}

\n Recent\n

\n {top.map((post, i) => (\n

\n {post.title}\n

\n \n

\n {post.description}\n

\n ))}\n

\n More posts\n

\n
\n {post.title}\n
\n \n
\n {post.description}\n
\n

\n \n );\n}",[],[203,504],"bf3424fa-73c8-11f0-a898-0224a6c84d84","Head.tsx","0198861c-26eb-77c2-9201-170da3477723",["D",1754596648609],"/** @jsxImportSource https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0 */\nimport { readFile } from \"https://esm.town/v/std/utils/index.ts\";\nimport { BLOG_URL, SITE_DESCRIPTION } from \"../utils/constants.ts\";\nimport type { BlogPost } from \"../utils/types.ts\";\n\nconst css = await readFile(\"styles/index.css\", import.meta.url);\nconst HLJS_CSS_URL = \"https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/highlight.js@11.8.0/styles/base16/solar-flare-light.css\";\n\nexport default function Head({ title, post }: {\n title: string;\n post?: BlogPost;\n}) {\n const description = post?.description ?? SITE_DESCRIPTION;\n const ogImage = new URL(\"/og-image.png\", BLOG_URL);\n ogImage.searchParams.append(\"title\", title);\n\n return (\n \n \n \n \n\n {title === \"Val Town Blog\" ? title : `${title} | Val Town Blog`}\n \n\n {/* RSS */}\n \n\n {/* Open Graph / Facebook */}\n \n \n \n \n\n \n\n {/* Twitter */}\n \n \n \n \n\n \n\n {\n /* Sitemap\n \n */\n }\n\n \n

Diff · v24