foldingathome.org

The Folding@home public website. Nuxt 4 app, hybrid rendered:

• Pages (/about, /diseases/*, /faq/*, /guides/*, …) live in content/pages/<slug>/{index.html,meta.json} and are statically prerendered at build time.
• Articles, RSS, sitemap, asset binaries are server-rendered on demand from the F@h API. CloudFlare caches the responses.

Architecture

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Browser                                              │
└──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                               │
┌──────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────┐
│  CloudFlare (caches everything by URL)                │
└──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                               │
┌──────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────┐
│  nginx → Nuxt SSR (node)                              │
│                                                       │
│    static  - content/pages/**, public/**, _nuxt/**    │
│    SSR     - /news, /news/<slug>, /news/rss.xml,      │
│               /sitemap.xml, /assets/<uuid>            │
└──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                               │
┌──────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────┐
│  api.foldingathome.org (jmpapi + MariaDB)             │
│                                                       │
│   /article, /article/<slug>, /paper, /asset/<uuid>, … │
│   Schema/procs live in the fah-cms repo               │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Page bodies still reference /assets/<uuid> URLs. The Nuxt server route at server/routes/assets/[id].get.ts fetches the base64-encoded blob from the API, decodes it, and streams binary with the stored Content-Type.

Layout

content/pages/<slug>/index.html   page body (HTML)
content/pages/<slug>/meta.json    {title, created, updated}

app/pages/index.vue               landing page
app/pages/[...slug].vue           filesystem-backed page renderer
app/pages/news/index.vue          news list (API)
app/pages/news/[slug].vue         single article (API)
app/utils/api.ts                  apiFetch() helper
app/utils/nav.ts                  top-nav definition (single source)
app/utils/sections.ts             per-section sidebar overrides

server/routes/news/rss.xml.ts     RSS feed
server/routes/sitemap.xml.ts      sitemap
server/routes/assets/[id].get.ts  /assets/<uuid> → API binary glue

Configuration

Public default — built into nuxt.config.ts:

apiUrl = https://api.foldingathome.org

Override per-environment with a (gitignored) .env.local:

NUXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api3.foldingathome.org

Same override applies at runtime — set NUXT_PUBLIC_API_URL in the systemd unit's Environment= on prod.

Local development

pnpm install
pnpm dev            # http://localhost:3000

pnpm dev reads .env.local for API overrides.

Build

pnpm build

Output:

.output/public/    prerendered HTML + hashed _nuxt/ assets
.output/server/    Nuxt SSR Node app (run with `node .output/server/index.mjs`)

Deploy

Files live under /var/www/foldingathome.org/ on prod. The Nuxt SSR app runs as www-data under systemd, listening on 127.0.0.1:3000; nginx proxies, CloudFlare caches.

/var/www/foldingathome.org/public/   prerendered HTML + hashed _nuxt assets
/var/www/foldingathome.org/server/   Nuxt SSR Node app (index.mjs + chunks)
/etc/foldingathome.org/web.env       optional Environment= overrides
/etc/systemd/system/foldingathome-web.service

First-time setup (once per host)

Prerequisite: Node ≥ 20 and rsync on the host. Push the deploy tree, then run the installer as root:

rsync -az deploy/ <host>:/tmp/foldingathome-deploy/
ssh <host> sudo /tmp/foldingathome-deploy/install.sh

The installer creates /var/www/foldingathome.org/{public,server}, installs and enables the systemd unit, and creates an empty /etc/foldingathome.org/web.env. To override the default API URL or port, edit that file:

NUXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api.foldingathome.org
NITRO_PORT=3000

Every deploy

deploy/deploy.sh <ssh-target>

Builds locally, rsyncs .output/{public,server}/ to the host, restarts foldingathome-web.service. Default ssh target is foldingathome.org.

Operate

sudo systemctl restart foldingathome-web
sudo systemctl status foldingathome-web
journalctl -u foldingathome-web -f

Editing content

• Pages: edit content/pages/<slug>/index.html directly, commit, redeploy. meta.json controls title + dates.
• Articles, papers, assets: edited via the CMS UI against the F@h API. No website rebuild needed — the SSR fetches fresh on each uncached request and CloudFlare's cache expires on its own schedule.