Foglight

Foglight is a local-first desktop situation room for live global events: earthquakes, severe weather, conflict wires, humanitarian reports, market tickers, open web activity, and live news video in one dense dashboard.

The Windows release is a single native desktop .exe. It bundles Python, the local HTTP server, the WebView desktop shell, and the app UI. End users do not need Python, WSL, Docker, Git, Node, or a Linux distro installed.

Foglight is MIT licensed and free for everyone to use, modify, distribute, and build on.

Screenshots

What It Does

Foglight watches public data streams and turns them into a single operational view:

• Global map overlays for earthquakes, hazards, weather, conflict, ISS, fires, flights, and ship/air sources when optional keys are configured.
• Live event panels for USGS quakes, NWS alerts, NOAA cyclones, GDACS, EONET, ReliefWeb, GDELT, and RSS wires.
• Market and internet pulse panels for Bitcoin, crypto, forex, commodities, GitHub, SEC EDGAR, Wikipedia edits, Hacker News, and Reddit.
• Live TV embeds for major news streams, with a YouTube fallback link when an embed is blocked.
• Local settings for panel visibility, watchlists, RSS feeds, API keys, and ambient audio cues.

Why It Exists

Foglight is built for people who want a fast, local, no-account overview of what is happening across the planet: weather risk, earthquakes, conflict wires, humanitarian updates, public market signals, internet activity, and live video. It is useful as an OSINT desk, newsroom side monitor, wall display, emergency awareness screen, or always-on desktop command center.

Feature Matrix

Area	Included
Desktop release	Single Foglight.exe, native WebView2 window, no installer
Live map	Dark global map, quake markers, weather polygons, conflict hotspots, hazards, ISS, optional fires/flights/ships
Hazard monitoring	USGS earthquakes, volcanoes, NOAA cyclones, GDACS disasters, EONET natural events, NWS alerts, tsunami feeds
Conflict and news	GDELT conflict feeds, UN, DW, France 24, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, defense/cyber RSS feeds
Humanitarian	ReliefWeb situation reports and update stream
Markets	Bitcoin mempool/fees/blocks, crypto tickers, forex, commodities, optional FRED/Finnhub keys
Internet pulse	GitHub public events, SEC EDGAR filings, Wikipedia edits, Hacker News, Reddit
Live TV	Major YouTube live news embeds, default channel setting, external fallback link
Local settings	Panel toggles, watchlist, custom RSS feeds, optional API keys, ambient audio toggles
Privacy model	Local-only app state, localhost server, masked keys, no Foglight cloud account

Full details are in docs/FEATURES.md.

Quick Start

Download the latest release asset:

Download Foglight.exe

Release page:

github.com/aivrar/foglight/releases/latest

Run it:

Foglight.exe

That is the normal user path. Foglight starts a local server on 127.0.0.1, opens a native WebView window, and stores runtime state under:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Foglight\

Use the in-app Shut down button to stop the local server and close the app.

Requirements

For users:

• Windows 10/11
• Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime
• Internet connection for live data feeds
• No admin rights expected
• No system Python required
• No WSL, Docker, Git, or Node required

WebView2 is normally present on modern Windows systems. If WebView startup fails, Foglight falls back to opening the local dashboard in the default browser.

Panels

Panel	Source	What It Shows
World Map	Leaflet, CARTO, OpenStreetMap	Global base map and overlays
Earthquakes	USGS GeoJSON	Recent seismic activity
Severe Weather	NWS api.weather.gov	Active US alerts and polygons
Conflict Watch	GDELT, UN, DW, France 24, defense RSS	Conflict-oriented stream
Major Hazards	NOAA NHC, GDACS, USGS, EONET	Cyclones, disasters, volcanoes, major quakes
Humanitarian Sitreps	ReliefWeb RSS	Humanitarian updates
Bitcoin Pulse	mempool.space	Fees, mempool, blocks, difficulty
Markets	CoinPaprika, Frankfurter, Stooq	Crypto, forex, commodities
News Ticker	Configured RSS feeds	Rolling headline strip
Wikipedia Edits	Wikimedia EventStreams	Recent public edits
GitHub Pulse	GitHub Events API	Public developer activity
SEC EDGAR	SEC Atom feed	Current filings
HN + Reddit	Firebase HN API, Reddit JSON	Internet trend panel
Live TV	YouTube live embeds	Live news video and external fallback

See docs/DATA_SOURCES.md and CREDITS.md for the full source and credit list.

Optional API Keys

Foglight works without keys, but these optional integrations unlock more map and market layers:

Key	Unlocks
AISstream	Live global ship positions
NASA FIRMS	MODIS/VIIRS near-real-time fire detections
OpenSky	Authenticated aircraft data
OpenWeatherMap	Global weather extensions
FRED	US macro indicators
Finnhub	Indices, earnings, market news

Keys are stored locally under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Foglight\state\settings.json. The settings API masks stored key values before returning them to the UI.

Project Structure

foglight/
|-- .github/
|   |-- ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
|   `-- pull_request_template.md
|-- assets/
|   |-- foglight.ico
|   `-- foglight-icon.png
|-- docs/
|   |-- screenshots/
|   |-- BUILD_WINDOWS.md
|   |-- DATA_SOURCES.md
|   |-- FEATURES.md
|   |-- FILE_TREE.md
|   |-- RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md
|   `-- REPOSITORY_SETUP.md
|-- web/
|   `-- app.js
|-- build_windows.py
|-- foglight_native.py
|-- foglight_native.spec
|-- foglight_server.py
|-- foglight_spec.md
|-- index.html
|-- requirements-build.txt
|-- CREDITS.md
|-- CHANGELOG.md
|-- CONTRIBUTING.md
|-- SECURITY.md
|-- LICENSE
`-- README.md

For a more detailed file map, see docs/FILE_TREE.md.

Build From Source

End users can download Foglight.exe from Releases and run it without Python. The steps below are for rebuilding the executable from source.

Developer build requirements:

• Windows
• Python 3.13+
• Dependencies in requirements-build.txt

Build:

python -m pip install -r requirements-build.txt
python .\build_windows.py

Output:

dist\Foglight.exe

The executable is a release artifact and should be attached to GitHub Releases, not committed to the repository.

Detailed build notes live in docs/BUILD_WINDOWS.md.

Local Development

Run the server directly:

$env:FOGLIGHT_APP_DIR = (Get-Location).Path
$env:FOGLIGHT_CACHE_DIR = "$env:TEMP\foglight-cache"
$env:FOGLIGHT_STATE_DIR = "$env:TEMP\foglight-state"
$env:FOGLIGHT_LOG_DIR = "$env:TEMP\foglight-logs"
python .\foglight_server.py 9787

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:9787/

Headless packaged smoke test:

$env:FOGLIGHT_NO_BROWSER = "1"
$env:FOGLIGHT_PORT = "19877"
.\dist\Foglight.exe

Security And Privacy

• Native launcher binds the server to 127.0.0.1.
• State-changing endpoints require same-origin requests.
• RSS proxy rejects localhost and private-network targets.
• API keys are stored only in the local Foglight state directory.
• /api/settings returns key status only, not full stored key values.
• No Foglight account or hosted backend is used.

See SECURITY.md for the disclosure and local-risk notes.

Release Flow

1. Capture final screenshots and place them under docs/screenshots/.

2. Run source checks:

   python -m py_compile .\foglight_server.py .\foglight_native.py .\build_windows.py
   node --check .\web\app.js

3. Build the exe:

   python .\build_windows.py

4. Smoke test dist\Foglight.exe.

5. Create a GitHub Release and upload dist\Foglight.exe as Foglight.exe.

Full checklist: docs/RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md.

Credits

Foglight stands on public data providers, open-source libraries, and platform tools. Credits are tracked in CREDITS.md, including Leaflet, OpenStreetMap, CARTO, PyInstaller, pywebview, Microsoft Edge WebView2, pythonnet, Pillow, and the public data providers used by the dashboard.

License

MIT License - free for everyone. See LICENSE. Third-party services, libraries, map tiles, and data feeds remain governed by their own licenses and terms.