PROJECT 02 / READ[DOT]
depth in a world of summaries.
solo side project · started july 2026 · live since october 2026
VISIT READDOT.XYZ ↗SECTION / 01THE IDEA
Most tools right now try to save you from reading by handing you AI summaries. I think that gets it backwards. AI has no taste or judgment of its own, and reading people who actually know their field is how you build your own.
So read[dot] uses a language model for one narrow job: picking. The writing stays with the people who wrote it. Every morning you get a finite edition of 8 to 15 pieces from the last 24 hours, each with a short line on why it's there and a link to read it on the publisher's own site. Nothing is hosted, republished or summarised.
“Human-written, machine-selected, never rewritten.”
Every morning starts the same way: a short greeting, then the day's edition.
SECTION / 02HOW IT WORKS
Reputable sources only. Around 45 outlets, research institutes, journals and newsletters, split into two tiers: broad, low-bias reporting and non-partisan research, then specialist outlets where a point of view is expected. Only sources with an RSS feed are used, so read[dot] works only with content publishers chose to share. No scraping.
The model judges, the code guarantees. Claude Haiku reads only each headline and short description, scores it for quality and fit with the reader's interests, and writes the "why you're seeing this" line. It never sees or rewrites the full article. Rules in code handle the rest: a quality floor, each story only once, and at most two paywalled pieces unless you subscribe to that outlet.
Beyond your topics. About a fifth of every edition deliberately comes from outside your stated interests, labelled as such, to widen your view instead of narrowing it.
About a fifth of each edition comes from beyond your stated topics, to widen the view rather than narrow it.
Finite by design. The edition lands at 5am Singapore time, by email and on the site. You read it and you're done. No infinite scroll.
About a dozen good reads a day. The point is to finish three or four.
SECTION / 03STACK
Next.js 16 · React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Vercel · Supabase (database and Google sign-in) · Anthropic API (Claude Haiku, structured JSON output) · Resend · Vercel Cron
SECTION / 04MY ROLE
A solo project. I came up with the idea, set the product and editorial rules, chose and vetted the sources, designed it, and built and shipped it, with Claude Code as my coding partner. I'm not a backend engineer by background, so a big part of this was learning to ship a real product end to end: auth, a database, scheduled jobs, LLM ranking, email deliverability, privacy and terms.
Tune my feed: one question per screen, with sign-in only at the end.
STATUS
Live and free. A first small group of readers is using it, and I'm collecting feedback before a wider launch.
WHAT'S NEXT
Telegram delivery, saving articles, reading streaks, a German version, and a read[dot]+ tier for adding your own feeds.