Quick start

reader requires Node 22+ and pnpm.

git clone https://github.com/standardbeagle/reader.git
cd reader
pnpm install
pnpm -r build

Run the web app

Two processes: the API server on port 3737 and the Vite dev server on 5173.

READER_PORT=3737 pnpm dev:server   # terminal 1
pnpm dev:web                       # terminal 2

Open http://localhost:5173. The SPA proxies /api/* to the server.

Run the desktop app

The Electron shell forks the server on 127.0.0.1 with a random port, so the same codebase powers both. better-sqlite3 needs a one-time native rebuild against Electron’s ABI — see apps/desktop/README.md — then:

pnpm --filter @reader/desktop dev

Run the tests

pnpm -r test

Tests cover the core parser and sanitizer, the server API (including snooze and lists), and the web app’s URL, error, and grouping logic. Live API tests for platform ingestors (Bluesky, Reddit) run against the real services and are skipped when credentials are absent.

Subscribe to something

Click + Add feed in the sidebar and paste any RSS/Atom URL — the server auto-discovers feeds behind common blog URLs. Articles appear within seconds of the initial fetch.