dailyfictions — Daily Fictions

A minimal film club app: browse by genre (rooms), propose and upvote films, lock “tonight’s pick,” and see where to watch. Data from TMDB; optional links to iCheckMovies and curated lists.

What it does

• Rooms (by genre) — 10 rooms: Comedy, Action, Horror, Drama, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller, Documentary, Animation. Each room has a distinct palette and optional director-inspired tagline. From a room you can:
  • See tonight’s pick (one locked film per room)
  • Propose a film (search by title) and upvote others’ proposals
  • Browse “In this room we could watch…” — highly-rated TMDB titles in that genre, cycled by day
  • See previously played films in that room
• Discover — “I want to see a movie that…” — search by phrase or keywords (e.g. “cat”, “time travel”); results are matched from TMDB.
• Movie Lists — Curated lists (e.g. TSPDT, Sight & Sound) with descriptions and links to sources or iCheckMovies. Open a list to browse titles and get ideas for proposals.
• Polls — Overview of all proposals and votes across rooms; films with 5+ upvotes are highlighted.
• Movie page — For any film: poster, title, year, directors, cast, overview, and where to watch (stream/rent/buy) for your chosen region.
• Watch region — Footer control to set your country; “Where to watch” uses this for TMDB provider results.
• Dark/light theme — Toggle in the header.

Run locally

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. Code changes hot-reload.

Environment

Copy .env.example to .env:

• TMDB_API_KEY (required): themoviedb.org/settings/api
• AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY (optional): for Discover chat (Mistral via Vercel AI Gateway). If unset, Discover chat shows an error when used.
• Do not commit .env or put real keys in the repo.

Stack

• Next.js (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS

Room and director config: lib/constants.ts. List definitions: lib/lists.ts.

Deploy

• Vercel: Link the repo, set TMDB_API_KEY (required) and optionally AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY (Discover chat) in Environment Variables, then deploy. Build: npm run build; output: default.
• Docker: From project root: docker build -t dailyfictions . (use a Dockerfile that runs npm ci && npm run build && npm start with Node 20+). Run with TMDB_API_KEY in the environment.
• Ensure npm run build passes before deploying.

Reference

• Engineering prompts: ENGINEERING_PROMPTS.md — milestones and checkpoints.
• Design/plans: .cursor/plans/ — aesthetics, rooms, director pairings, APIs.