Merged Futures App

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Conference companion PWA for Merged Futures 8 — schedule, talk reservations, forum discussions. Built with Svelte 5, Hono, and Swarm decentralised storage.

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Merged Futures 8 — Conference Companion PWA

A decentralised conference companion app for Merged Futures 8 (Digital Northants 8th Annual Innovation Showcase, 26 June 2026, University of Northampton).

Built as a working prototype to explore what a fully decentralised event platform looks like — no traditional database, no centralised hosting. All data lives on Swarm and the frontend is served from Swarm too.

Status: Prototype — being proposed to the event organisers. Not yet confirmed for the event.

Demo

View the live prototype

Open in your regular browser (mobile or desktop) — in-app browsers (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter) do not support passkeys.

Features

Agenda — Browse the full event schedule across 5 tracks with talk details and speaker info
Talk Reservations — Reserve your spot at talks and receive a POD (Proof of Attendance) stored on Swarm
Personal Schedule — View your reserved talks with automatic time-conflict detection
Discussion Forum — Per-talk discussion threads for pre/post-event conversation
User Profiles — Create a profile with avatar upload (stored on Swarm)
Organiser Dashboard — View reservation counts and attendance data across all talks
PWA — Installable on mobile for an app-like experience

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Svelte 5, Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, vite-plugin-pwa
Backend	Hono.js, Node.js, ethers.js
Storage	Swarm decentralised storage (feeds + bytes)
Auth	Passkey + Web3 wallet with EIP-712 session delegation

All data — reservations, profiles, forum posts, PODs — is stored on Swarm feeds. There is no traditional database. The frontend is also hosted on Swarm via a content hash.

Project Structure

frontend/          Svelte 5 PWA (port 5173 in dev)
  src/
    lib/
      auth/        Passkey + wallet authentication
      api/         Backend API client functions
      components/  Reusable UI components
      data/        Stores (router, reservations, profile, forum) and agenda data
      pages/       Page components (Home, Agenda, Schedule, Forum, Profile, etc.)
      shared/      Shared TypeScript types
backend/           Hono.js API server (port 3002)
  src/
    routes/        API route handlers
shared/            Reference copy of shared types
scripts/           Deployment scripts

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Node.js 18+
npm

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The frontend runs at http://localhost:5173.

Backend

The backend requires a .env file with Swarm configuration. Copy the example and fill in your values:

cd backend
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your Swarm gateway URL, postage batch ID, and feed private key
npm install
npm run dev

The API server runs at http://localhost:3002.

Environment Variables

Frontend (frontend/.env):

Variable	Description
`VITE_API_URL`	Backend API URL (e.g. `http://localhost:3002`)

Backend (backend/.env):

Variable	Description
`BEE_URL`	Swarm gateway URL
`POSTAGE_BATCH_ID`	Swarm postage batch for uploads
`FEED_PRIVATE_KEY`	Private key for Swarm feed writes
`PORT`	Server port (default: 3002)
`ALLOWED_HOSTS`	Comma-separated list of allowed CORS origins

How It Works

Authentication — Users authenticate via passkey (WebAuthn) which creates a session wallet. An EIP-712 signature delegates authority from the user's parent wallet to the session, enabling seamless signing without repeated prompts.
Reservations — When a user reserves a talk, the backend writes a POD to a Swarm feed scoped to their wallet address. Reservations are stored locally per account and synced from Swarm on new devices.
Storage — All persistent data (profiles, forum posts, reservation counts) is written to Swarm feeds using the backend's feed key. The backend acts as a relay — it signs and uploads data to Swarm on behalf of users.
Hosting — The built frontend is uploaded to Swarm and pinned via a feed, producing a content-addressed URL. Hash-based routing ensures deep links work without a traditional server.

Scripts

Command	Description
`cd frontend && npm run dev`	Start frontend dev server
`cd frontend && npm run build`	Build frontend for production
`cd frontend && npm run check`	Run Svelte and TypeScript checks
`cd backend && npm run dev`	Start backend dev server (with hot reload)
`cd backend && npm run build`	Compile backend TypeScript
`cd backend && npm run start`	Start backend in production mode

License

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