process.env.ADMIN_PANEL_ENABLED was always undefined in the running
SvelteKit server process — Vite only injects VITE_-prefixed vars into
process.env for server-side code; plain vars in frontend/.env never reached
it, so the admin panel stayed disabled (cog hidden, /admin/* 404s) no matter
what the .env file said. Switched to SvelteKit's own $env/dynamic/private,
which reads it correctly in dev, preview, and adapter-based deployments.
Reproduced and verified the fix against a real frontend/.env file (not an
inline shell var, which is what masked this the first time).
Two hardening changes beyond just a password:
- The admin panel no longer uses stored credentials at all. The backend
generates a random API key on every startup and prints it to its own
console (never through the DB-backed logger, since that's only reachable
from inside the panel this key protects). Every /api/admin/* request must
carry it as an X-Api-Key header, checked with a timing-safe comparison on
every call — there's no session to create or steal, and restarting the
backend invalidates the previous key immediately. The old admin_users and
sessions tables, scrypt password hashing, and cookie-based session plumbing
are removed entirely (dropped via migration for existing installs, not
left behind unused). The login page keeps its existing layout but now asks
for this key and explains where to find it, storing it in the browser's
localStorage rather than relying on a server session.
- The admin panel (the masthead's cog icon and the /admin/* pages
themselves) is now disabled by default on every deployment, gated by a new
frontend-only ADMIN_PANEL_ENABLED env var. This is a separate, UI-only
visibility control — the API key above is what actually protects the
backend regardless of this flag.
Every ingested article used to show up on the homepage regardless of its
source, which meant a handful of high-volume feeds could flood "Top Stories."
Sources now default to not appearing there; a source has to explicitly opt
in via a new checkbox (also toggleable inline with a star icon) for its
articles to show up on the homepage feed. An article shows there if any of
its contributing sources opted in — merged/clustered stories aren't held to
requiring all sources to agree. Category pages, Local, tags, and events are
unaffected; this only gates the bare, no-filter homepage query.
Schema: sources.push_to_top_stories and merged_articles.top_stories, both
backfilled for existing databases via ALTER TABLE.
YouTube's public Atom feed only accepts a channel_id (or the legacy user
param) — it has no equivalent for the newer @handle format, so pasting a
handle URL straight into the source's url field wouldn't have worked. The
adapter now accepts a bare channel ID, a /channel/UC... URL, an @handle URL,
or a bare handle/username, resolving whichever was given to the actual
channel ID by reading it off the channel page when needed.
- Fix "Body cannot be empty" error on DELETE by making the JSON content-type
parser tolerate empty bodies, and by only sending Content-Type from the
frontend when a request actually has one.
- Deleting a source now cascades: raw content items and any article composed
entirely from that source are removed too, plus their media.
- Add admin endpoints/UI to clear all articles, all media, or a single
source's content without deleting the source, so things can be repopulated
fresh.
- Sources can now be assigned multiple categories via checkboxes (instead of
free text) and edited in place, not just added/deleted.
- Add a "News" default category (seeded fresh, backfilled on existing DBs) so
general news sources have a real home instead of the pseudo-category "Top
stories", which is just the homepage's all-categories chronological view.
- Widen the site's content column 15% (1080px -> 1242px).
- Add YouTube as its own source type/ingestion module: pulls a channel's
public Atom feed, and each video always publishes directly as its own
article (title, embedded video, publish date, description) rather than
going through the cross-source clustering/synthesis pipeline.
Claude
Salastil