Forget is a post deleting service for Twitter and Mastodon. It lives at https://forget.codl.fr.

Running your own

Requirements

• Postgresql
• Redis
• Python 3.6+
• Node.js 10+

Set up venv

Setting up a venv will isolate Forget from your system's libraries and allow you to install dependencies locally as a normal user. It's not necessary but it is recommended!

$ python -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate

If you're using zsh or fish as a shell, substitute venv/bin/activate with venv/bin/activate.zsh or venv/bin/activate.fish, respectively.

You will need to "activate" the venv in every new terminal before you can use pip or any python tools included in dependencies (honcho, flask...)

Download and install dependencies

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ npm install

Wow!! Exciting

Create and complete config file

Gotta set up those, paths, and stuff.

$ cp config.example.py config.py
$ $EDITOR config.py

Set up database schema

If you haven't started postgresql yet now would be a great time to do that.

$ createdb forget # if you havent created the DB yet
$ env FLASK_APP=forget.py flask db upgrade

Build static assets

Gonna do it...!

$ doit

Done did it.

Running

The included Procfile will run the app server and the background worker. honcho, a Procfile runner, is included as a dependency:

$ honcho start

The application server will listen on http://127.0.0.1:42157. You'll want to use your favourite web server to proxy traffic to it. This author suggests Caddy.

Development

For development, you may want to use Procfile.dev, which starts flask in debug mode and rebuilds the static assets automatically when they change

$ honcho -f Procfile.dev start

Or you could just look at Procfile.dev and run those things manually. It's up to you.

You can run the (currently very incomplete) test suite by running pytest. You'll need redis installed on your development machine, a temporary redis server will be started and shut down automatically by the test suite.

Contact

If you're having trouble with Forget, or if you're not having trouble but you just want to tell me you like it, you can drop me a note at @codl@chitter.xyz or codl@codl.fr.

Greetz

Thank you bea, for making ephemeral, inspiring me to make limiter, then this, in an attempt to bring ephemeral with me everywhere. ☕

Thank you to the kind folks who have emailed me to tell me Forget has made their time on social media less stressful. 🌻