A calm-screen dashboard for a rooted Skylight Calendar, driven by a schedule and managed from a phone via a companion admin PWA. The screen shows exactly one thing at a time — a photo, the weather, a memo, a checklist, a movie poster, or a trash-night reminder — chosen by the time of day.
A schedule (evaluated every minute, first matching rule wins; default is the photo frame) decides what the display shows. Content — photos, memo, list, movie — lives in a SQLite database on the Pi and is managed remotely from the admin PWA (installable on a phone). Changes propagate to the dashboard instantly over Server-Sent Events.
┌─────────────┐ /admin ┌────────────────┐ SQLite ┌──────────────┐
│ Phone PWA │ ─────────▶ │ FastAPI (Pi) │ ◀────────▶ │ skylight.db │
│ (admin UI) │ ◀──SSE──── │ port 8894 │ └──────────────┘
└─────────────┘ └───────┬────────┘
│ serves /
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Dashboard (webview on│
│ Skylight Calendar) │
└──────────────────────┘
| Screen | Source | When |
|---|---|---|
| Photos | /api/photos (rotating frame) |
Default / all other times |
| Weather | Open-Meteo (live, hardcoded loc) | Daily 7:00–9:30 |
| Trash Night | Static interrupt (dismissible) | Tuesdays 17:00–23:59 |
| Movie | /api/movie (TMDB-backed) |
Wed 19:30–23:00 & Thu 17:00–23:00 |
| Memo | /api/memo |
Via admin override only |
| List | /api/list-items |
Via admin override only |
The admin PWA can override the schedule to pin any screen; the override is cleared automatically when the schedule crosses into a new 30-minute slot.
- Backend: Python 3, FastAPI, Uvicorn, SQLite (WAL mode), httpx
(
backend/main.py,backend/database.py) - Dashboard: Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, single file —
app.js+index.html+style.css - Admin PWA: Vanilla JS PWA with service worker + web manifest (
backend/static/) - External APIs: Open-Meteo (weather, keyless), TMDB (movie search, key required)
No build step. No framework.
├── app.js # Dashboard logic (source of truth — copied to backend/dashboard/)
├── index.html # Dashboard shell (clock, interrupt, dock)
├── style.css # Dashboard styles
├── README.md
├── CLAUDE.md # Notes for AI coding assistants
│
├── backend/
│ ├── main.py # FastAPI app: REST API + SSE + serves dashboard & /admin
│ ├── database.py # SQLite schema, seed data, connection helpers
│ ├── requirements.txt # fastapi, uvicorn, httpx, python-multipart
│ ├── setup.sh # One-time Pi setup (venv, deps, systemd install)
│ ├── skylight-backend.service # systemd unit (user server_admin, port 8894)
│ ├── data/ # Runtime: skylight.db, photos/, posters/ (gitignored)
│ ├── dashboard/ # Deployed copy of the dashboard served at /
│ │ ├── app.js index.html style.css
│ │ ├── photoframe_images/ # Seed photos (gitignored)
│ │ ├── scratchpics/ # Fallback images (gitignored)
│ │ └── weather-icons/ # PNG weather icon set
│ └── static/ # Admin PWA served at /admin
│ ├── app.js index.html style.css sw.js manifest.json
│ └── icons/
The dashboard files at the repo root and under
backend/dashboard/are kept identical. Edit the root copies, then sync tobackend/dashboard/(the backend serves only the copies underbackend/dashboard/).
FastAPI on port 8894. All mutating endpoints broadcast an SSE update event so the
dashboard refreshes without polling. Key endpoints:
| Method | Path | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| GET | / |
Dashboard HTML |
| GET | /admin |
Admin PWA (static mount) |
| GET | /api/events |
SSE stream (real-time push) |
| GET | /api/health |
Health check |
| GET | /api/photos |
List photos (ordered) |
| POST | /api/photos/upload |
Upload image (≤10MB) |
| PUT | /api/photos/reorder |
Reorder by { order: [ids] } |
| PUT/DEL | /api/photos/{id} |
Update sort / delete |
| GET/PUT | /api/memo |
Single memo (title + content) |
| CRUD | /api/list-items[/{id}] |
Checklist items |
| PUT | /api/list-items/reorder |
Reorder items |
| GET/PUT | /api/movie |
Single movie; posters auto-downloaded |
| GET | /api/movie/search?query= |
TMDB movie search (needs TMDB_API_KEY) |
| GET/PUT | /api/display-override |
Pin a screen or null for auto |
| GET | /photos/{file} /poster/{file} |
Serve stored images |
Database tables: photos, memo (singleton id=1), list_items, movie
(singleton id=1), settings (holds display_override).
The dashboard runs on a Raspberry Pi. The backend runs as a systemd service.
One-time setup on the Pi (from the backend/ directory):
bash setup.sh # creates venv, installs deps, installs the service
sudo systemctl edit skylight-backend # set Environment=TMDB_API_KEY=...
sudo systemctl start skylight-backendRedeploying the dashboard UI — edit the root app.js / index.html /
style.css, then sync to backend/dashboard/ and restart so FastAPI picks up
new files (StaticFiles are read per-request, so a restart is usually unnecessary
for content changes, but restart to be safe):
# from repo root, after editing the dashboard
cp app.js index.html style.css backend/dashboard/
ssh server_admin@<pi-ip> 'sudo systemctl restart skylight-backend'The systemd unit (skylight-backend.service) runs as user server_admin from
/home/server_admin/backend. The setup.sh script creates the venv, installs
dependencies, copies the unit to /etc/systemd/system/, and enables the service.
Run the backend with hot reload and serve everything from one origin:
cd backend
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
export TMDB_API_KEY=your_key_here # optional, only for movie search
uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8894- Dashboard: http://localhost:8894/
- Admin PWA: http://localhost:8894/admin/
To work on the dashboard UI without the backend, note that app.js expects the
/api/* endpoints and Open-Meteo; with no backend it falls back to a
"Connection Lost" interrupt. So run the backend for meaningful local testing.
MIT