Saily

Grounded daily citizen science puzzles — hunt planets, survey asteroids, classify Mars. Built with Next.js and PocketBase.

Saily is a Wordle-style daily app where you help characters in simple, multi-chapter stories solve real-world scientific mysteries by classifying actual astronomical and planetary data.

Quick Start (Docker)

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Command	Description
make up	Start all services in Docker containers
make down	Stop all containers
make logs	View logs from all services
make lint	Run linter in container
make build	Build Next.js app in container

Saily Core Concepts

• Real Science: Every puzzle uses actual data from TESS or Mars surface imagery. No procedural generation.
• Daily Mission: One mission per day, resetting at Melbourne/AEST Midnight.
• Story Chapters: Follow 4 characters through 5-chapter story arcs.
• Data Chips: Earn consumables to repair streaks and unlock the archive.
• Bulk Discovery: Your classifications contribute to a global consensus submitted to scientific bodies.

Architecture

• Frontend: Next.js 16 with TypeScript, App Router
• Backend: Shared Star Sailors PocketBase auth plus the Saily PocketBase backend
• Container Orchestration: Docker Compose
• Development: Hot reloading with volume mounts

Services

When running make up, these services start:

• Web App: http://localhost:3127
• Shared PocketBase: http://localhost:8090
• Saily PocketBase: http://localhost:8092

Environment variables

Copy web/.env.example to web/.env.local for local npm run dev, or copy .env.docker.example to .env.docker for make up/make bootstrap. Both files document every required var inline (PocketBase, PostHog, Resend, CMS allowlist, E2E credentials).

Secret rotation

Do this before every production deploy, and whenever an environment is promoted (dev → staging → prod):

1. Generate fresh values for every var marked SECRET in web/.env.example / .env.docker.example — do not carry over local/dev values. This includes SAILY_PB_ENCRYPTION_KEY, ADMIN_SYNC_SECRET, SAILY_PB_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD, RESEND_API_KEY, and POSTHOG_PERSONAL_API_KEY.
2. Rotate the PocketBase superuser password on both the shared and Saily backends, and update the SHARED_PB_SUPERUSER_* and SAILY_PB_SUPERUSER_* credentials wherever they're configured (Vercel, Docker secrets, CI).
3. Confirm NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_VERSION is bumped for the release and is consistent across every environment config.
4. Never commit a real .env, .env.local, or .env.docker file — only the *.example files are tracked in git (see .gitignore).

Documentation

See guides/daily-grid-local-setup for detailed setup instructions and alternative workflows.