Show HN: TeaTime – distributed book library powered by SQLite, IPFS and GitHub

306 points · yoavm · 10 days ago

Recently there seem to be a surge in SQLite related projects. TeaTime is riding that wave...

A couple of years ago I was intrigued by phiresky's post[0] about querying SQLite over HTTP. It made me think that if anyone can publish a database using GitHub Pages, I could probably build a frontend in which users can decide which database to query. TeaTime is like that - when you first visit it, you'll need to choose your database. Everyone can create additional databases[1]. TeaTime then queries it, and fetches files using an IPFS gateway (I'm looking into using Helia so that users are also contributing nodes in the network). Files are then rendered in the website itself. Everything is done in the browser - no users, no cookies, no tracking. LocalStorage and IndexedDB are used for saving your last readings, and your position in each file.

Since TeaTime is a static site, it's super easy (and free) to deploy. GitHub repo tags are used for maintaining a list of public instances[2].

Note that a GitHub repository isn't mandatory for storing the SQLite files or the front end - it's only for the configuration file (config.json) of each database, and for listing instances. Both the instances themselves and the database files can be hosted on Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, your Raspberry Pi, or any other server that can host static files.

I'm curious to see what other kinds of databases people can create, and what other types of files TeaTime could be used for.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27016630

[1] https://github.com/bjesus/teatime-json-database/

[2] https://github.com/bjesus/teatime/wiki/Creating-a-TeaTime-in...

55 comments

2color · 9 days ago

This looks neat!

IPFS contributor here.

I had a look at your code and saw how you handle downloading from multiple gateways.

There's a better way to this which also leverages direct P2P retrieval in browsers, which is now a thing with IPFS! [0] If you just want to fetch, checkout @helia/verified-fetch[1] which gives you a Fetch like API that accepts CIDs. It handles all the content routing and retrieval p2p magic and can help reduce reliance on gateways.

You can also pass it gateways in case it can connect to providers directly (due to transports)

[0] https://blog.ipfs.tech/2024-shipyard-improving-ipfs-on-the-w... [1] https://github.com/ipfs/helia-verified-fetch/tree/main/packa...

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aeyes · 9 days ago

The Pear P2P framework might be worth a look if you want to get off of GitHub and turn it into a truly distributed system. If the index must be on GitHub then what good is it to have the files on IPFS?

https://docs.pears.com/

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mdaniel · 9 days ago

> (I'm looking into using Helia so that users are also contributing nodes in the network)

I had to look that term up <https://github.com/ipfs/helia#readme> but while sniffing around in their <https://github.com/ipfs/helia/wiki/Projects-using-Helia> I was reminded of https://github.com/orbitdb/orbitdb#readme which seems like it may be much less rolling your own parts

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boramalper · 9 days ago

Also see: Show HN: Fully-searchable Library Genesis on IPFS

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585208

https://libgen-crypto.ipns.dweb.link/

viborcip · 10 days ago

"Everything is done in the browser - no users, no cookies, no tracking. LocalStorage and IndexedDB are used for saving your last readings, your position in each file."

I love this! Thanks for making this!