Realtime emoji reactions from a shareable web reaction deck to a native macOS desktop overlay.

• apps/web — Nuxt 4 reaction deck and host UI
• apps/realtime — Cloudflare Worker + one Durable Object per room
• apps/macos-overlay — native Swift/AppKit menu-bar app scaffold
• packages/protocol — shared realtime message contract

pnpm install
pnpm dev:web

From the repository root, you can run:

pnpm dev:web        # Nuxt reaction deck
pnpm dev:realtime   # Cloudflare Worker locally
pnpm deploy:realtime # Deploy the realtime Worker
pnpm build:web      # Build the Nuxt app
pnpm deploy:web     # Build and deploy the Nuxt app to Cloudflare Workers
pnpm build:macos   # Build the SwiftPM macOS app
pnpm run:macos     # Run the native overlay
pnpm package:macos # Create an unsigned .app and ZIP in dist/
pnpm clean:macos   # Remove SwiftPM build artifacts

The web app runs without a backend in local demo mode. The realtime Worker can be developed with Wrangler once Cloudflare bindings are configured. pnpm dev still runs the JavaScript workspace tasks through Turborepo.

Production URLs:

• Web reaction deck: https://peanutgallery.arcodelabs.com
• Realtime WebSocket: wss://gallerybutter.arcodelabs.com

Set NUXT_PUBLIC_REALTIME_URL to override the realtime endpoint for local development or another deployment.

Everything runs on two Workers in a single Cloudflare account. The Workers free plan is enough: Durable Objects here use the SQLite backend, which is free-tier eligible.

npx wrangler login

npx wrangler d1 create peanut-gallery

The binding in apps/realtime/wrangler.jsonc deliberately omits database_id, so Wrangler resolves it against your own account on deploy and no one's database ID has to live in the repository. The binding is declared but not yet read by the Worker — it exists so room persistence can be added without a config change.

pnpm deploy:realtime

Wrangler prints the deployed URL, e.g. https://peanut-gallery-realtime.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev. The WebSocket endpoint is the same host with the wss:// scheme.

Copy apps/web/.env.example to apps/web/.env and set that wss:// URL:

NUXT_PUBLIC_REALTIME_URL=wss://peanut-gallery-realtime.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev

Nuxt reads .env at build time, and .env is gitignored, so your endpoint never reaches a versioned file. Point it at ws://localhost:8787 to develop against a local pnpm dev:realtime.

CI does not read .env. Set NUXT_PUBLIC_REALTIME_URL in the workflow environment, or the build falls back to the default in nuxt.config.ts.

pnpm deploy:web

A first deploy to a fresh workers.dev subdomain can return error code: 1042 for up to a minute while the route propagates. Retry before debugging.

Nothing to configure at build time — see macOS overlay below.

With the zone on the same Cloudflare account, add a route in each Worker's config, then redeploy:

// apps/realtime/wrangler.jsonc
"routes": [{ "pattern": "realtime.example.com", "custom_domain": true }]

Update NUXT_PUBLIC_REALTIME_URL to match, and set the new address in the overlay's Set Realtime Server… dialog.

The overlay has no endpoint compiled into it. It asks for a realtime server on first launch, and the same dialog stays available from the menu bar under Set Realtime Server…, so one machine can point at any deployment without a rebuild.

Paste either the wss:// endpoint or the https:// URL Wrangler prints on deploy — the scheme is normalised for you. Bare hosts (my-worker.example.workers.dev) and localhost:8787 work too, the latter defaulting to ws:// rather than wss://.

The address is stored in UserDefaults under peanutGallery.realtimeURL. Saving a new server reconnects the current room immediately. The menu bar shows the active server and connection state, abbreviating workers.dev addresses to their account subdomain to keep the menu narrow; the full address is in the dialog.

For local development, an environment variable takes precedence over the saved value:

PEANUT_GALLERY_REALTIME_URL=ws://localhost:8787 pnpm run:macos

While it is set the dialog is read-only and says the environment is in control, rather than silently discarding what you type.

The repository includes three workflows under .github/workflows/:

• deploy-realtime.yml deploys the realtime Worker when relevant changes land on main.
• deploy-web.yml builds and deploys the Nuxt app when relevant changes land on main.
• macos-release.yml packages the unsigned macOS app and publishes it to a GitHub Release for tags such as v0.1.0.

Create a GitHub Actions environment named production, then add these environment secrets:

CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN
CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID

The Cloudflare token should be scoped to the account and have permission to deploy Workers. macOS releases are currently unsigned and do not require Apple credentials. To publish one:

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

Because the macOS app is currently unsigned and un-notarized, Gatekeeper may block it on first launch. After unzipping the release artifact, run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine PeanutGallery.app