ByteStash

ByteStash is a lightweight, self‑hosted paste‑bin service built to give developers fine‑grained control over code snippet storage, retrieval, and collaboration. At its core it exposes a RESTful API for CRUD operations on snippets while also providing a modern web UI that supports syntax highlighting, language filtering, and keyword search. The application is intentionally minimalistic—there are no external dependencies beyond a single SQLite database—which makes it ideal for rapid deployment in containerised environments or as part of a larger developer tooling stack.

Key Features

• Snippet Lifecycle Management – Create, edit, delete, and tag snippets with language metadata.
• Search & Filtering – Full‑text search across title, description, and content; filter by programming language or custom tags.
• Secure Storage – All data persisted in a single SQLite file, encrypted at rest if the environment variable JWT_SECRET is set.
• Authentication & Authorization – JWT‑based auth with optional OIDC integration; per‑user isolation of snippets.
• API Exposure – Swagger UI available at /api-docs; all endpoints are documented and versioned.

Technical Stack

Core Capabilities

• REST API – Endpoints for /snippets (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) with pagination and filtering query params.
• Webhooks – Not natively supported, but can be implemented via a lightweight middleware that triggers on snippet changes.
• Extensibility – The API surface is stable; developers can write custom scripts or services that consume the endpoints for CI/CD pipelines, documentation generators, or IDE integrations.
• Plugin Hooks – Currently minimal, but the Express app exposes a plugins directory where additional middleware can be dropped in without modifying core code.

Deployment & Infrastructure

ByteStash is designed for zero‑configuration deployment: a single Docker container with a mounted volume for the SQLite file. It scales horizontally by running multiple instances behind a load balancer, but note that SQLite does not support concurrent writes across processes—thus true horizontal scaling requires a shared filesystem or migrating to PostgreSQL in the future. For most use cases, a single instance suffices, and the lightweight footprint (≈120 MB) allows it to run on modest hardware or cloud droplets.

Integration & Extensibility

• OIDC – Optional OpenID Connect support allows integration with corporate identity providers (Google, Azure AD, Okta).
• JWT – Tokens are signed with a user‑supplied secret; expiration is configurable (TOKEN_EXPIRY).
• CLI – While not provided, the REST API can be consumed by command‑line tools or scripts.
• Custom Hooks – Developers can add custom middleware in the Express app to log activity, enforce policies, or expose additional endpoints.

Developer Experience

The project is well‑documented: a comprehensive README, environment variable guide, and Swagger UI make onboarding fast. Community support is modest but active; issues are triaged quickly on GitHub, and the codebase follows standard JavaScript/React conventions. Configuration is entirely environment‑variable driven, which aligns with Twelve‑Factor App principles and facilitates CI/CD pipelines.

Use Cases

• Internal Knowledge Base – Teams can host a private paste‑bin for sharing snippets, configuration files, or short scripts.
• CI/CD Artifact Store – Scripts that generate temporary code (e.g., Terraform modules) can be pushed to ByteStash and retrieved by downstream jobs.
• IDE Integration – VS Code extensions can call the API to save and retrieve snippets directly from the editor.
• Educational Platforms – Course instructors can host a sandboxed snippet repository for students to experiment with code samples.

Advantages

• Performance – Node/Express is lightweight; SQLite offers sub‑millisecond query times for small datasets.
• Flexibility – Open source under a permissive license; developers can fork, extend, or re‑host without vendor lock‑in.
• Security – JWT and optional OIDC provide robust authentication; data is stored locally, eliminating third‑party exposure.
• Simplicity – Zero external dependencies beyond Docker; ideal for quick prototypes or low‑budget deployments.

ByteStash offers a developer‑centric, self‑hosted solution for code snippet management that balances simplicity with extensibility. Its API‑first design, coupled with a clean React UI and Docker support, makes it a practical choice for teams that need secure, on‑premise paste‑bin functionality.