Digiview

Digiview is a lightweight, self‑hosted web application designed to present and manage digital artifacts—ranging from images and PDFs to structured data sets—in a unified, searchable interface. Built with the goal of minimal external dependencies, it exposes a RESTful API for ingestion and retrieval while rendering an interactive front‑end that leverages client‑side caching to reduce server load. The core idea is to give developers a plug‑in ready platform that can be deployed behind an existing reverse proxy and integrated into larger content workflows without requiring a monolithic stack.

Key Features

• Universal Asset Catalog – Automatically indexes uploaded files, extracts metadata (EXIF, PDF text, JSON schema), and stores them in a relational database for fast querying.
• Full‑Text Search & Faceted Filtering – Powered by PostgreSQL’s tsvector and GIN indexes, allowing sub‑second search across thousands of documents.
• Versioning & Audit Trail – Every asset modification is logged, and previous versions can be restored via the API.
• Custom Tagging & Hierarchical Collections – Users can create nested collections and assign arbitrary tags, enabling flexible organization.
• OAuth2 & API Key Authentication – Supports granular permissions (read, write, admin) for third‑party integrations.

Technical Stack

• Backend: Python 3.11, FastAPI framework for asynchronous request handling and automatic OpenAPI generation.
• Database: PostgreSQL 15 with pg_trgm and uuid-ossp extensions; optional SQLite for lightweight deployments.
• Search Engine: Native PostgreSQL full‑text search; no external Elasticsearch required.
• Front‑end: Vue 3 with Pinia for state management; Tailwind CSS for responsive styling.
• Containerization: Official Docker image built on python:3.11-slim; docker-compose.yml provides a single‑file deployment template.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Digiview is engineered for containerized environments but can also run as a system service. It requires:

• A PostgreSQL instance with sufficient disk space for asset metadata and binary storage (optionally backed by a separate object store).
• A reverse proxy (NGINX, Traefik) to terminate TLS and route /api vs. static assets.
• Optional background workers (Celery) for heavy processing such as OCR or thumbnail generation, which can be scaled horizontally.
• Health checks exposed on /health for orchestration platforms like Kubernetes.

Integration & Extensibility

Developers can extend Digiview in several ways:

• Plugin System – Implements a digiview.plugins entry point; plugins can hook into upload, download, and metadata extraction pipelines.
• Webhooks – Emit events (asset.created, asset.deleted) to external services via configurable URLs.
• SDKs – A Python client library mirrors the REST API, simplifying integration into existing pipelines.
• GraphQL Gateway – Optional GraphQL layer for complex queries across assets, tags, and collections.

Developer Experience

• Configuration – YAML/JSON files with clear defaults; environment variables override for CI/CD pipelines.
• Documentation – Auto‑generated Swagger UI, detailed API reference, and example payloads.
• Community – Active GitHub discussions, a dedicated Discord channel for rapid support, and a quarterly release cycle that prioritizes backward compatibility.
• Licensing – MIT license allows unrestricted commercial use, encouraging adoption in enterprise stacks.

Use Cases

1. Digital Asset Management – Central repository for marketing teams to store and retrieve creatives with metadata search.
2. Research Data Catalog – Academics can ingest datasets, PDFs, and code notebooks; versioning ensures reproducibility.
3. Compliance Archiving – Legal departments can archive documents with audit trails and controlled access.
4. Internal Knowledge Base – Companies expose a curated collection of internal docs, SOPs, and training materials.

Advantages Over Alternatives

• Zero External Dependencies – No need for Elasticsearch or separate search services; everything runs on PostgreSQL.
• Performance – Asynchronous FastAPI handling and GIN indexes deliver sub‑second search even on large catalogs.
• Flexibility – The plugin architecture lets developers replace or augment core features without touching the codebase.
• Licensing & Security – MIT license and self‑hosted nature mean no data exfiltration risk, making it suitable for regulated environments.

In summary, Digiview offers a robust, developer‑friendly platform for managing digital artifacts at scale. Its minimalist architecture, extensible plugin system, and strong community support make it an attractive choice for teams that need a customizable, self‑hosted solution without the overhead of managing multiple services.