2026-08-04

Hello. Ephem is live.

The API worker is live, the overhead map works, the debris feed is running its first nightly propagation. Notes on what shipped, what didn't, and what's next.

What shipped

• The developer API is live at https://ephem-api.YOUR-SUBDOMAIN.workers.dev. Six read-through endpoints for NOAA space weather, one for Launch Library 2 upcoming launches, one for the CelesTrak object catalog, and one for NASA DONKI events.
• The nightly SGP4 propagator runs at 03:17 UTC and writes per-shell density plus a diff-vs-yesterday to KV. The shell surface reads it.
• The overhead map at /overhead runs SGP4 in the browser against cached CelesTrak TLEs — no server round-trip per pass calculation.
• The signed methodology PDF (v1.0) — catalog, propagator, binning, error bars, refresh cadence, diff semantics, reproducibility. Handed to anyone who asks how the numbers are made.
• The monthly Shell PDF — per-shell density snapshot, catalog diff, editorial notes on each notable shell. One PDF per calendar month, with /shell/reports/latest.pdf as a stable link for subscribers.
• The Shell webhook delivery loop — subscribers to /shell/subscribe receive an HTTPS POST when their configured shell crosses their density threshold.
• Shell diff now reports moved_shells — objects whose shell membership changed between two nightly runs — alongside added and removed. A rolling 30-day roll-up is at /shell/diff/30d.
• Client SDK examples for curl, Python (stdlib), TypeScript (fetch), and Go (net/http) at /docs/sdk. No wrapper library — the API is small enough that a hand-written client is thirty lines.

What didn't

• Programmatic pages for the full ~10k CelesTrak catalog are gated on the first successful nightly cron run — the seed catalog has ~16 landmark objects that stay live even if CelesTrak is down.
• The city gazetteer is still the 150-city seed. The GeoNames importer (pnpm import:cities) is written and tested; the expanded write happens on the next connected build.

What's next

• Run the GeoNames importer to grow the gazetteer from 150 to ~5,000 cities.
• Second monthly Shell PDF, once the current month closes.
• Additional long-form guides land per EPHEM_CODEX.md §7.3 when there is something worth writing — not before.

Reach the author at naraxcel.studio@gmail.com.