Farfield Systems

Stack

The standard library plus exactly one dependency: modernc.org/sqlite, a pure-Go SQLite driver. No cgo, so every build is a static binary. HTTP is net/http, templates are html/template, assets are embedded with embed, logging is log/slog. No web framework, no ORM, no router library.

Core Ideas

• Content-addressed. Every record carries a CID — a sha-256 hash of its content — for verification, change detection, and ETag caching.
• Self-migrating. A database migrates its own schema when it is opened; deploying new code is the migration step.
• One aesthetic. The admin UIs share one warm-instrument look — paper ground, white panels, ink, one signal red — from a single shared stylesheet.

Services

Conventions

• Reads need a read token. The JSON read APIs require a bearer token — send the app's read key as Authorization: Bearer <token> or X-API-Key. The write key is also accepted. Responses still send Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *.
• Some routes stay public. Things a browser or scanner loads directly and cannot attach a header to: blob bytes (/blobs/{cid}), QR scan and redirect (/qr/{id}, /r/{id}), the daily artifacts, and every /status.
• "View source" is public. A single published record by slug — feed /api/posts/{slug} and content /api/entries/{slug} — loads without a token so the site's "view source" links open in a browser, but it is rate-limited per client IP (keyed callers are exempt). Drafts stay a 404 to anyone without the write key; the enumerating lists stay token-gated.
• Writes need the write key — same headers, a separate higher-privilege token.
• Drafts. The read token returns published content only. The write key additionally previews drafts on content (?status=all or ?status=draft, or fetch a draft by slug).
• Every record has a stable key (its slug) and a CID (sha-256 hash). The key never changes; the CID changes when content changes.
• Single-record endpoints send the CID as a strong ETag. Send If-None-Match for conditional GET.
• Timestamps are RFC3339 UTC strings.