Why I Built Field Notes

I am Aariv Patel, a ninth-grade student at Dulles High School, founder of the Digital Design Club, and builder of open-source developer tools and pro-bono community websites. Every time I shipped a project over the past year, the hardest engineering lessons were buried inside commit messages and scratch files. I built Field Notes to give those architecture notes a permanent, searchable home.

Author Profile

School: Freshman (9th Grade) at Dulles High School
Community & Leadership: Founder of the Digital Design Club; web builder for student and community organizations including MSA
Other Disciplines: Competitive speech and debate; North Indian classical tabla practice (Tintal, Jhaptal, Rupak)
Shipped Projects Covered Here: Regatta, wasitme, AarivOS, Pulse, Devlog Timer, and Garlic Panic

Dual-Mode Fullstack Architecture

To satisfy both the fullstack Next.js + MongoDB mission architecture and instant zero-server verification on GitHub Pages, this repository ships with two synchronized layers:

Next.js + Mongoose Backend: Full schemas in models/Post.js and models/User.js, connection pooling in lib/mongodb.js, JWT + bcrypt authentication in pages/api/auth/*, and CRUD routes in pages/api/posts/*.
Interactive Browser Runtime: Root index.html, about.html, and app.js mirror the exact schema and auth flow in localStorage (automatically calling /api/* when a Next.js server is detected).

Four "Take It Further" Features Implemented

01 // DISCOVERY

Instant Tag Filtering & Full-Text Search

Filter dispatches by engineering topic (#electron, #telemetry, #accessibility, #godot) or search across titles, summaries, and Markdown bodies in real time.

02 // METRICS

Live Word Count & Reading-Time Estimator

Both the Mongoose pre-save hook and the client editor calculate exact word counts and reading time (at 200 words per minute) as you type.

03 // AUTHORING

Split-Pane Live Markdown Preview Editor

Authenticated authors can write or edit posts in a two-column workbench with live rendered headings, code blocks, lists, and inline formatting.

04 // INTERACTION

Post Reactions, Reading Queue & Theme Switcher

Readers can increment Insightful and Shipped counters, bookmark articles into a persistent reading queue, and toggle between Dark and Light editorial themes.