motd — milestone

what's built

Terminal-aesthetic social platform. Everything happens in a terminal UI — no chrome, no nav bars. Commands in, text out.

the shell

Full terminal interface in the browser — dark background, monospace, command input at the bottom
Centered terminal layout, 800px default width
Drag-to-resize from left/right edges — invisible 8px hit zones, min 400px
/terminal --width — set width in px, %, or reset to default
Width persisted in localStorage
Mobile: 100% width, no resize
All visual settings (colors, font, prompt format, welcome message) driven by config.json
Client-side config system — localStorage overrides merged with server defaults
/config export — download config as JSON
/config import — load config from JSON file, validated
/config reset — restore server defaults
/+ /− — font size increase/decrease (8-32px, persisted)
Command history with up/down arrow keys
Tab completion for all commands
Full sidebar — motd.social branding, commands, doc links, footer
Right-click context menu on interactive elements (usernames, tags, posts, doc links, media)
/clear wipes the terminal
/help and /menu show available commands
Favicon: m> SVG, dynamically generated from accent color
Guest landing shows last 5 posts on page load
5 posts shown after login/register

auth

/register — interactive prompts, password masked via CSS (no browser autofill interference)
/login — session stored in sessionStorage (gone when tab closes)
/login-permanently — session stored in localStorage (persists)
/logout — clears session from both storages
Session restored on page load if valid
Browser password save triggered after successful login/register
Prompt updates: guest@motd > becomes username@motd >
Passwords hashed with bcrypt, validated (3-20 char usernames, 8+ char passwords)
Username blacklist: motd* prefix regex + fixed list of reserved names
Rate limiting: auth (20/15min), posts (30/min), uploads (10/min)
Auth via Bearer token in Authorization header

profiles

/profile — view your own profile with ASCII avatar and stats
/profile @user — view another user's profile
/avatar — upload profile picture (PNG), processed to ASCII art for terminal display
/settings — update display name, bio, confirm_post preference
/find <query> — search users by username or display name
ASCII avatars: uploaded image converted to ASCII, or deterministic hash pattern as fallback

posts & feed

Dual-purpose input: text without / is a post, text with / is a command
confirm_post preference (default on) — shows "Post this? (y/n)" before posting
/post <text> — always posts immediately, skips confirmation
/feed — chronological feed, public (no login required). Authenticated users get kill-filtered results, guests get unfiltered
/reply <id> <text> — reply with grey quote block of parent post
/re <text> — reply to last displayed post (no ID needed)
/goto <id> — jump to a specific post
Tags use [brackets]: [rust], [music], [coding]
Tags stripped from displayed content, shown only as clickable links below
Tags auto-extracted from post content and auto-assigned to categories
Short alphanumeric IDs (6-8 chars) for posts and media

post lifecycle

Active: posts visible in feed for 30 days
Archived: moved to archive table, searchable for 90 more days
Purged: permanently deleted after 120 days total
Cron job runs daily — archives, purges, cleans dead filter references
/find --archive searches archived posts

discovery

/find <query> — search users and posts
/find --archive <query> — search archived posts
/tree -cat — browse categories and tags with clickable bracket links
/link <target> — universal navigation (user, tag, post, doc)
Categories: coding, creative, meta, general — with seeded tag mappings

media

/avatar — upload profile picture (PNG only)
/upload — upload PNG (5MB), MP3 (10MB), MP4 (25MB)
PNG pipeline: original (max 1MB), thumbnail (80px), large (800px), ASCII art
/attach <media_id> — attach media to a post (inline command)
/view — view original media (ASCII art + inline image)
/play / /pause — audio and video playback with terminal progress bar
/expand media — expand all media in view inline
/expand nada — collapse all inline media
/expand <id> — expand media from a specific post
/rmedia <id> — delete your uploaded media
Media deleted on account termination and post purge

hidden moderation (/kill)

/kill @username — hides user's content from your feed silently
/kill <post_id> — hides a specific post
filter_score decays over time (7-day half-life), threshold at 10
Users filtered by enough people get suppressed from everyone's feed — silently, no ban, no notification
The word "kill" never appears in the database or API — stored as "filters" and "filter_score"

bookmarks

/bookmark <target> — bookmark a user, tag, post, or doc
/unbookmark <target> — remove a bookmark
/bookmarks — view all bookmarks grouped by type
/bookmarks --type — filter by user, tag, post, or doc
Bookmarks are private — no counts, no notifications, nobody sees them
Bookmarked posts show [archived] or [expired] status when applicable
Deduplication — bookmarking the same thing twice is a no-op
Right-click context menu: bookmark/unbookmark on any interactive element

docs

/read <name> — inline markdown reader
/read — list available docs
Docs served from public/docs/ as markdown files
Available: about, api, commands, milestone, roadmap, plugins, changelog, terms, support
Terms include GDPR (EU rights, Helsinki servers) and age requirement (16+)

account management

/terminate-account — permanent account deletion
Cascading wipe: bookmarks, posts, media files, sessions, credentials, user record
Username confirmation required
Username freed immediately

api

All endpoints return { ok: true, data: {...} } or { ok: false, error: "..." }.

POST   /api/auth/register
POST   /api/auth/login
POST   /api/auth/logout
GET    /api/auth/me

GET    /api/profile/search?q=
GET    /api/profile/:username
PUT    /api/profile

POST   /api/filter
GET    /api/filter

POST   /api/posts
GET    /api/posts/feed          (public, auth optional)
GET    /api/posts/search?q=&archive=
GET    /api/posts/:id
GET    /api/posts/:id/thread

POST   /api/avatar
GET    /api/avatar/:username

POST   /api/media/upload
GET    /api/media/:id
GET    /api/media/:id/thumb
GET    /api/media/:id/large
GET    /api/media/:id/ascii

POST   /api/bookmarks
DELETE /api/bookmarks
GET    /api/bookmarks?type=

GET    /api/docs
GET    /api/docs/:name

GET    /api/categories

DELETE /api/account

GET    /api/commands

tech

Node.js + Express backend
libSQL (SQLite-compatible) database
Vanilla JS single-page app — no framework
System monospace fonts only — no external font loading
Session-based auth with cookie + bearer token support
API-first: every feature accessible through the API
Daily cron for post lifecycle management
Rate limiting on auth, posts, and uploads
Deploy script with DB backup and auto-rollback
Server: Hetzner Helsinki, systemd + nginx + certbot

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