Stringer

Stringer is a lightweight, self‑hosted RSS reader built with Ruby on Rails and a PostgreSQL back‑end. It deliberately eschews external services, social networking hooks, or machine learning pipelines in favor of a deterministic, privacy‑first architecture. The core application exposes both a web UI and a Fever‑compatible REST API, allowing it to be paired with any mobile client that supports the Fever protocol. This dual‑mode interface makes Stringer a flexible integration point for developers who want to expose RSS content to custom front‑ends or third‑party readers without sacrificing control over data.

• Backend: Ruby on Rails 7, leveraging ActiveRecord for ORM and ActionCable for real‑time updates. Background jobs are processed with GoodJob, which can use PostgreSQL’s pg_job table or an external queue such as Sidekiq, giving developers the option to scale asynchronously.
• Database: PostgreSQL is the sole data store, providing ACID guarantees for feed metadata, user credentials, and story content. Stringer ships with a schema that supports sharding via logical partitioning of stories by feed, which can be extended to multiple databases for horizontal scaling.
• Frontend: Backbone.js powers the client‑side MVC layer, enabling a single‑page experience with keyboard shortcuts and instant navigation. The UI is rendered server‑side for SEO and initial page load, then hydrated client‑side for interactivity.
• Containerization: Docker images are available in the repo, with a docker-compose.yml that wires Rails, PostgreSQL, and GoodJob together. The Dockerfile is minimal, exposing only the necessary ports (default 5000) and environment variables (DATABASE_URL, LOCALE).

• Feed Management: CRUD operations for feeds, including automatic RSS/Atom parsing via the feedjira gem. Developers can hook into feed ingestion with custom parsers or filters.
• Story Lifecycle: Stories are stored in a stories table with status flags (read, starred). A rake task (cleanup_old_stories) demonstrates how to purge stale data programmatically.
• API: The Fever clone exposes endpoints for authentication, fetching feeds, marking stories read/starred, and retrieving unread counts. The API is stateless and can be consumed by any HTTP client; authentication uses basic auth with a single user per instance.
• Internationalization: Locale files are stored in config/locales, and the LOCALE env var switches languages at runtime. Integration with LocaleApp allows community‑driven translations without code changes.

Stringer runs on any Ruby‑compatible environment: Heroku, VPS (Ubuntu/Debian), Docker, or OpenShift. The Heroku buildpack automatically installs dependencies and sets up the database via DATABASE_URL. For VPS deployments, the repo provides a VPS.md guide that assumes systemd and bundler. The Docker image can be orchestrated with Kubernetes or Docker‑Compose; the container exposes a single port and uses environment variables for configuration, making it straightforward to integrate with CI/CD pipelines. GoodJob’s background worker can be scaled horizontally by adding more pods or workers, and its PostgreSQL backend removes the need for a separate Redis instance.

• Plugins: While Stringer has no formal plugin API, its modular Rails structure allows developers to fork the repository and add custom controllers or background jobs. The app/jobs folder is a natural place to introduce new ingestion strategies.
• Webhooks: The Fever API can be extended with custom endpoints; for example, a webhook that pushes new stories to a Slack channel or a custom notification service.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: The Backbone.js front‑end exposes ? for help, and developers can augment the shortcut map by adding new actions in app/assets/javascripts/shortcuts.js.
• Customization: Themes can be swapped by overriding CSS in app/assets/stylesheets. Because the UI is rendered with ERB, developers can inject custom components or third‑party widgets.

Stringer’s codebase is small and highly testable: RSpec covers the Ruby logic, while JavaScript tests run with rake test_js. The repository includes a comprehensive README and several documentation files (docs/Heroku.md, docs/VPS.md, docs/Docker.md) that walk through deployment scenarios. Community support is active via GitHub issues, and the project’s maintainability score on Code Climate indicates a clean architecture. The use of standard Rails conventions (routes, controllers, models) means that developers familiar with Rails can contribute quickly.

1. Private Feed Hub – Deploy on a personal VPS to aggregate work blogs, tech news, and newsletters without exposing data to third‑party analytics.
2. Custom Mobile Reader – Pair Stringer’s Fever API with a bespoke Android/iOS app that implements unique UX patterns or offline caching.
3. Team Knowledge Base – Host a shared instance for internal documentation feeds, leveraging the cleanup_old_stories rake task to keep storage lean.
4. Embedded Widget – Embed the web UI in a corporate intranet, customizing the theme to match branding while retaining full control over data.

• Privacy‑First: No external dependencies or telemetry; all data stays on the host.
• Performance: Rails + PostgreSQL provide fast query execution for feed lookups, while GoodJob handles background fetching