explaingit

tophubs/toplist

4,726GoAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5Setup · hard

TLDR

A self-hosted Go application that aggregates trending headlines from major Chinese platforms like Zhihu and Hupu into one page, a crawler fetches data hourly via cron, a web server displays it.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((TopList))
    What it does
      Aggregate trending content
      Single page for all sources
    Source platforms
      Zhihu Q and A
      Hupu sports
      Other Chinese sites
    Architecture
      Crawler program
      Web server program
      MySQL storage
    Setup
      Compile Go programs
      Create MySQL database
      Configure cron schedule
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Self-host a single-page dashboard showing what is trending across multiple Chinese online communities updated every hour.

USE CASE 2

Use the provided JSON API to fetch trending items from any supported category programmatically for your own app.

USE CASE 3

Study the project as a reference for building a Go web application with a scheduled crawler and a MySQL-backed REST API.

USE CASE 4

Extend the crawler with additional Chinese platform sources by following the existing source structure.

Tech stack

GoMySQLJavaScript

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires compiling two separate Go programs, setting up MySQL with a provided SQL file, and configuring cron for the hourly crawler, README is in Chinese.

License not stated in the explanation, check the repository directly before reusing.

In plain English

TopList (also called Today's Hot List, or in Chinese: 今日热榜) is a website aggregator that collects trending headlines from several major Chinese online communities and displays them in one place. It pulls live data from platforms such as Zhihu (a Chinese Q&A site), Hupu, and others, giving users a single page to scan what is popular across multiple sites at once. The project is written in Go and splits its work between two programs. One program is a crawler that fetches fresh trending data from each source site. It runs on a scheduled task, typically once per hour, using the server's built-in job scheduler (cron). The other program is a web server that takes the stored data and serves it to visitors through a browser interface and a simple API. Data is stored in a MySQL database. To set up the project yourself, you compile both programs, create the database using a provided SQL file, edit a configuration file with your database credentials, and then update a JavaScript config file with your server address. After that you start the crawler on a schedule and keep the server running in the background. The README is written in Chinese and includes setup steps, a directory layout, and API documentation with example responses. The API returns JSON and allows callers to fetch a list of available source categories and then request the current hot items for any one category. The project is self-hosted, meaning you run it on your own server rather than relying on any external service.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through the full setup of tophubs/toplist on a Linux server, compiling both Go programs, creating the MySQL database, editing the config, and scheduling the crawler with cron.
Prompt 2
Show me what the toplist JSON API response looks like for fetching trending items from a specific category, and how I would call it from a JavaScript frontend.
Prompt 3
How is the toplist project structured into two separate Go programs, and how do they share data through MySQL?
Prompt 4
I want to add a new source site to toplist. Based on the existing crawler code, show me the structure I need to implement for a new source.
Prompt 5
How do I run the toplist web server as a background service on Linux so it restarts automatically if the server reboots?
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