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NowBind

Write for humans. Feed the machines.

The open-source blogging platform where every post is both a beautiful article and a structured AI-agent feed.

License Go Next.js PostgreSQL

What is NowBind?

Most blogging platforms treat AI as an afterthought. NowBind is built from the ground up so every published post automatically becomes:

  • A beautifully rendered article for readers
  • Structured markdown with YAML frontmatter for LLMs
  • AI summaries and keywords for agent consumption
  • An MCP resource for Claude and other AI assistants
  • An llms.txt entry following the llmstxt.org spec

Your blog becomes a knowledge base that both people and AI can read, search, and reference.

Features

Writing -- Markdown editor with live preview, GFM support, tags, drafts, reading time estimation, and full-text search (PostgreSQL tsvector + trigram fuzzy matching).

Auth -- Google & GitHub OAuth, passwordless magic links via Gmail, JWT + refresh tokens with HttpOnly cookies.

Social -- Follow authors, likes, bookmarks, threaded comments, personalized feed, in-app + browser push notifications (VAPID/Web Push), share buttons.

Analytics -- View tracking, unique visitors, AI vs human classification, stats dashboard with timeline/top posts/referrers.

AI Integration -- Agent REST API (API key auth), MCP server (JSON-RPC 2.0), llms.txt / llms-full.txt, structured markdown output.

PWA -- Installable, offline fallback, service worker caching (Serwist), push notifications.

Feeds -- RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, JSON Feed 1.1.

SEO -- Open Graph, Twitter Cards, JSON-LD, canonical URLs, dynamic sitemap, robots.txt.

Why Switch from Medium to NowBind?

  • Own your stack: self-hostable codebase, open data model, no platform lock-in.
  • Own your content: import Medium exports and publish from your own domain and database.
  • AI-native publishing: every post is readable for humans and consumable by agents via MCP, Agent API, and llms.txt.
  • Extensible by design: OSS roadmap, public issues/discussions, and contributor-friendly architecture.

Migration guide: docs/launch/migrate-from-medium.md
In-app migration page: /docs/migrate

Tech Stack

Backend Frontend
Language Go 1.25 TypeScript 5
Framework chi v5 Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19
Database PostgreSQL 16 (pgx/v5) --
Styling -- Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn/ui
Auth JWT, OAuth2, magic links Cookie-based sessions
Other webpush-go, Gmail OAuth2 SMTP Serwist (PWA), Lucide icons, react-markdown

Quick Start

Prerequisites

  • Go 1.25+, Node.js 20+, PostgreSQL 15+ (running on your host)

1. Clone & set up

git clone https://github.com/nowbind/nowbind.git
cd nowbind

2. Start PostgreSQL locally

Make sure your host Postgres service is running and accessible on port 5432. NowBind does not manage Postgres as a Docker service in this repo.

3. Run the backend

cd backend
cp .env.example .env    # edit with your config
go mod download
go run cmd/server/main.go -migrate
go run cmd/server/main.go

4. Run the frontend

cd frontend
npm install

Create frontend/.env.local:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:8080/api/v1
NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL=http://localhost:3000
BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:8080

npm run dev

Or use make dev from the project root to run backend + frontend once Postgres is already running.

Environment Variables

Backend (.env)

Variable Required Description
DATABASE_URL Yes PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET Yes Min 32 chars for HMAC signing
FRONTEND_URL Yes Frontend origin (CORS + redirects)
PORT No Server port (default: 8080)
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID No Google OAuth
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET No Google OAuth
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID No GitHub OAuth
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET No GitHub OAuth
EMAIL_SENDER No Gmail address for magic links
GMAIL_REFRESH_TOKEN No Gmail OAuth2 refresh token
VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY No Web push (generate with npx web-push generate-vapid-keys)
VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY No Web push

Frontend (.env.local)

Variable Required Description
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL Yes Backend API URL
NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL Yes Frontend URL
BACKEND_URL Yes Backend root URL (for SSR)

OAuth, email, and push are all optional -- the platform works without them.

Project Structure

nowbind/
├── backend/
│   ├── cmd/server/           # Entry point
│   ├── internal/
│   │   ├── config/           # Env config
│   │   ├── database/         # PostgreSQL + migrations (7 files)
│   │   ├── handler/          # HTTP handlers
│   │   ├── middleware/       # Auth, API key, CORS, logging
│   │   ├── mcp/              # MCP server (JSON-RPC 2.0)
│   │   ├── model/            # Domain models
│   │   ├── repository/       # Data access layer
│   │   ├── router/           # Route definitions
│   │   └── service/          # Business logic
│   └── pkg/                  # JWT, slug, gravatar utils
│
├── frontend/
│   ├── app/                  # Next.js App Router
│   │   ├── (main)/           # Public: explore, post, author, docs, search
│   │   ├── (auth)/           # Login, OAuth callback
│   │   ├── (dashboard)/      # Editor, stats, settings, notifications
│   │   └── sw.ts             # Service worker
│   ├── components/           # Layout, post, social, PWA, UI (shadcn)
│   └── lib/                  # API client, auth context, hooks, types
│
├── docker-compose.yml
├── Makefile
├── API_TESTING.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── NOTICE
└── LICENSE

Agent API

AI-optimized endpoints with API key auth. Create keys from the dashboard or /api-keys page.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer nb_your_api_key" \
  https://nowbind.com/api/v1/agent/posts
Endpoint Description
GET /api/v1/agent/posts List posts with AI metadata
GET /api/v1/agent/posts/{slug} Full post as structured markdown
GET /api/v1/agent/search?q= Full-text search
GET /api/v1/agent/authors List authors
GET /api/v1/agent/tags List tags

MCP Server

NowBind exposes an MCP server for AI assistants like Claude.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nowbind": {
      "url": "https://nowbind.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer nb_your_api_key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Resources: nowbind://posts, nowbind://authors, nowbind://tags, nowbind://feed

Resource Templates: nowbind://posts/{slug}, nowbind://authors/{username}, nowbind://tags/{slug}

Tools: search_posts, get_post, list_posts, get_author, search_authors, list_author_posts, list_tags, get_tag_posts

API Endpoints

Full interactive docs at /docs on any running instance.

Auth
Method Endpoint Auth
POST /api/v1/auth/magic-link --
GET /api/v1/auth/magic-link/verify --
POST /api/v1/auth/refresh Cookie
POST /api/v1/auth/logout Cookie
GET /api/v1/auth/me JWT
GET /api/v1/auth/oauth/google --
GET /api/v1/auth/oauth/github --
Posts
Method Endpoint Auth
GET /api/v1/posts Optional
GET /api/v1/posts/trending Optional
GET /api/v1/posts/{slug} Optional
GET /api/v1/posts/{slug}/related Optional
POST /api/v1/posts/{slug}/view --
POST /api/v1/posts JWT
PUT /api/v1/posts/{id} JWT
DELETE /api/v1/posts/{id} JWT
POST /api/v1/posts/{id}/publish JWT
POST /api/v1/posts/{id}/unpublish JWT
Social
Method Endpoint Auth
POST /api/v1/posts/{id}/like JWT
DELETE /api/v1/posts/{id}/like JWT
POST /api/v1/posts/{id}/bookmark JWT
DELETE /api/v1/posts/{id}/bookmark JWT
GET /api/v1/posts/{id}/comments --
POST /api/v1/posts/{id}/comments JWT
PUT /api/v1/comments/{id} JWT
DELETE /api/v1/comments/{id} JWT
POST /api/v1/users/{username}/follow JWT
DELETE /api/v1/users/{username}/follow JWT
GET /api/v1/users/{username}/followers Optional
GET /api/v1/users/{username}/following Optional
GET /api/v1/feed JWT
Users
Method Endpoint Auth
GET /api/v1/users/{username} Optional
GET /api/v1/users/{username}/posts Optional
PUT /api/v1/users/me JWT
GET /api/v1/users/me/posts JWT
GET /api/v1/users/me/liked JWT
GET /api/v1/users/me/bookmarks JWT
Notifications
Method Endpoint Auth
GET /api/v1/notifications JWT
GET /api/v1/notifications/unread-count JWT
POST /api/v1/notifications/{id}/read JWT
POST /api/v1/notifications/read-all JWT
GET /api/v1/notifications/vapid-key --
POST /api/v1/notifications/subscribe JWT
POST /api/v1/notifications/unsubscribe JWT
GET /api/v1/notifications/preferences JWT
PUT /api/v1/notifications/preferences JWT
Analytics, Tags, Search, Feeds, API Keys
Method Endpoint Auth
GET /api/v1/stats/overview JWT
GET /api/v1/stats/timeline?days=30 JWT
GET /api/v1/stats/top-posts?days=30 JWT
GET /api/v1/stats/referrers?days=30 JWT
GET /api/v1/tags --
GET /api/v1/tags/{slug}/posts --
GET /api/v1/search?q= --
GET /api/v1/search/suggest?q= --
GET /api/v1/feeds/rss --
GET /api/v1/feeds/atom --
GET /api/v1/feeds/json --
GET /llms.txt --
GET /llms-full.txt --
POST /api/v1/api-keys JWT
GET /api/v1/api-keys JWT
DELETE /api/v1/api-keys/{id} JWT

Database

Migrations run automatically on startup (idempotent). Run manually with:

cd backend && go run cmd/server/main.go -migrate
Migration Tables
001_initial users, posts, tags, post_tags
002_sessions sessions, magic_links
003_api_keys api_keys
004_analytics post_views, post_stats
005_search tsvector + GIN/trigram indexes
006_social follows, post_likes, comments, bookmarks, notifications, push_subscriptions, notification_preferences
007_tracking login_logs, api_key_usage

Neon databases are auto-detected and configured with appropriate pooling.

Development

make dev              # Start backend + frontend (requires local Postgres)
make dev-backend      # Go backend
make dev-frontend     # Next.js dev server
make db               # Reminder: Postgres is host-managed
make migrate          # Run migrations
make build-backend    # Build Go binary
make build-frontend   # Build Next.js
make lint             # Lint frontend
make clean            # Clean build artifacts

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting a PR.

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 — this is copyleft software. If you modify and host NowBind as a network service, you must release your modifications under AGPL-3.0. See the NOTICE file for attribution requirements.

About

The open platform that binds content to context.

nowbind.com

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