Disqus

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Build me a commenting system that replaces Disqus: comments on my pages, from my own domain, with no third party watching my readers.

STACK
- Node 20+ with Fastify
- SQLite through better-sqlite3, WAL mode
- One embeddable script under 15KB gzipped, served from my own domain
- Caddy in front

THE DATA MODEL
- sites: id, domain, name, moderation_mode, allow_anonymous, close_after_days, akismet_key
- threads: id, site_id, identifier, url, title, is_closed, created_at — the identifier is mine to choose and never the URL alone, because URLs change
- comments: id, thread_id, parent_id, author_id, author_name, author_email_hash, author_url, body_md, body_html, status, ip_hash, user_agent_bucket, created_at, edited_at, deleted_at
- votes: id, comment_id, voter_hash, direction, created_at
- authors: id, email_hash, display_name, avatar_seed, is_trusted, is_blocked, created_at
- subscriptions: id, thread_id, email, token, kind, confirmed_at — reply notifications, opt-in
- moderation_log: id, comment_id, action, actor, reason, created_at — append-only

IDENTITY WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT
- A commenter gives a name and optionally an email. The email is stored as a salted hash for the avatar and reply notifications; the plain address is kept only if they asked for notifications, and is deletable by a link in every one of those emails
- Avatars are generated from the hash — a deterministic identicon drawn as SVG. No Gravatar, no request to anyone else's server
- An email that has had a comment approved becomes trusted, and trusted comments appear immediately. This is the whole moderation strategy for a small site
- Optional sign-in with a magic link, if a site wants persistent identity; never required

SPAM, WHICH IS THE ACTUAL WORK
- A honeypot field and a minimum time-on-form, both of which stop most of it
- Rate limits per address hash and per thread
- Link count, first-comment-with-a-link, and a keyword list, each configurable, each pushing to the queue rather than rejecting
- Optional Akismet, off by default, and the README says clearly that turning it on sends comment text to a third party — which is the thing this tool exists to avoid
- Every rejected comment is stored, never silently dropped, so a false positive can be found and released

THREADING AND READING
- Nested replies to a configurable depth, then flat — three levels is enough and deeper is unreadable on a phone
- Sort by newest, oldest or most voted
- Markdown, restricted: emphasis, links, lists, code, quotes. Rendered on the server and sanitised there, with the sanitised HTML stored so a page render is never a parse
- Edit window of a few minutes; an edited comment says so
- Deleting leaves a tombstone so the replies underneath still make sense

THE EMBED
- One script and a container div, given the thread identifier and the page title
- Renders server-side HTML fetched in one request, so the comments are readable before any JavaScript runs where possible
- Shadow DOM, inherits my font and accent, dark and light
- Lazy: nothing loads until the container is near the viewport, because comments are at the bottom of the page and most readers never reach them
- No cookies unless the reader comments; no third-party requests, ever

MODERATION
- A queue with approve, reject, block author, and a note; every action written to the log
- Bulk actions, and a keyboard-driven review screen because moderation is repetitive
- Email to the owner on a new comment, batched, with approve and reject links that work from the mail

MIGRATION
- Import from a Disqus XML export: threads, comments, authors, timestamps and parent relationships
- Match threads by identifier first, then URL, and report what could not be matched instead of guessing
- Export in the same shape, so leaving this is as easy as arriving

OPERATIONS
- .env: DATABASE_PATH, BASE_URL, HASH_SALT, SESSION_SECRET, SMTP_URL, ALLOWED_ORIGINS
- Migrations on boot, each once
- The read path is one prepared statement and an in-memory cache with an ETag
- Nightly backup off the machine, restore script
- Health endpoint

WHAT MATTERS MOST
Spam handling and the trusted-author rule. Build the honeypot, the rate limits and the queue first, then leave it exposed on a real page for a week. A commenting system with no spam defence takes about three days to become unusable.

Give me the repository, the embed script, the Disqus importer, migrations, .env.example, a seed thread, and a README with deploy steps behind Caddy.