🔶 HN Watcher

Real-time Hacker News user & item watcher with Firebase SSE streaming and Web Push notifications.

Features

Multi-user — sign in with Val Town, each user has their own watch list
Watch HN users — get notified on new posts, comments, karma changes, profile edits
Watch HN items — track score changes, new comments on stories
Browse HN feeds — Top, Ask HN, Show HN, and Jobs in tabbed feed view
Real-time via Firebase SSE — browser connects directly to Firebase for instant updates
Web Push notifications — native browser notifications even when tab is closed
Interval backup poller — catches everything every 5 minutes when no browser is open
Tabbed UI — Notifications front-and-center by default, HN Stories in a second tab
Collapsible watch settings — keep the UI clean, expand when you need to add/remove watches

Rendering mermaid diagram...

Sign in with your Val Town account
Add HN usernames or item IDs to your personal watch list (via collapsible Watch Settings panel)
Browse HN feeds — switch between Top, Ask HN, Show HN, and Jobs tabs; watch items directly from the feed
The browser opens EventSource connections directly to Firebase for each watched entity
When Firebase pushes changes, the client-side diff engine detects what changed
Changes are reported to the backend, stored per-user in SQLite, and trigger Web Push notifications
The Notifications tab (default view) shows your activity feed; switch to HN Stories to browse
When the browser is closed, the interval val polls every 5 min and sends push to all affected users

Endpoint	Description
`GET /api/hn/:feed`	Proxy to HN Firebase API. Feeds: `top`, `ask`, `show`, `jobs`, `new`, `best`
`GET /api/watched`	Get current user's watched users & items
`GET /api/events`	Get current user's activity events
`POST /api/watch/user`	Add a HN user to watch
`POST /api/watch/item`	Add a HN item to watch
`POST /api/subscribe`	Register push subscription
`POST /api/test-push`	Send test push notification