Web · Newsroom system
TownCore
A newsroom system for towns that lost their paper.
Our product, in production
Small towns lost their newspapers. TownCore runs a network of local news sites from one system: it watches city hall, the schools, police, and local feeds, drafts the stories, and keeps an editor in the loop before anything goes out. The Peninsula Post in Tega Cay runs on it, with more towns configured behind it.
What it does
Small towns lost their newspapers. TownCore runs a network of local news sites from one system, watching city hall, the school district, police and fire, and local feeds, drafting the stories and keeping an editor in the loop.
How it works
Crawlers cover RSS, plain HTML, YouTube captions, Dropbox and a municipal records system that publishes agendas and meeting video. A source that fails three times pauses itself. Leads are scored, and only an editor promotes one to a story unless it clears a high bar for its category.
The hard parts
Keeping a model from fabricating on thin source material, which is handled by refusing to publish rather than inventing, and by a separate pass that scores every draft for legal risk and quotes the exact line it is worried about. Council meeting video becomes a structured digest where every quote has to be verbatim.
Built with
Next.js 16, Postgres with Drizzle, Claude through the Vercel AI Gateway, and Vercel Cron. 25 tables, 120 API routes, six station configurations.
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