docs: public-release README; ci: GitHub Actions workflow

README rewritten for a public audience: what the tool is and is not
(the not-validated disclaimer up front), the model with literature
references (Holme & Kim 2002; Kempe, Kleinberg & Tardos 2003), honest
status checklist, quick start, layout, the generated-types rule, and
the prevention-only framing of the subject.
CI mirrors the local checks (go test, gofmt, golangci-lint, vue
type-check/lint/test/build) and adds a drift guard: go generate must
leave web/src/types/ unchanged, so the Go structs stay the single
source of truth in fact, not just in principle.
This commit is contained in:
Justin Visser 2026-06-10 14:06:41 +02:00
parent a57e729c10
commit 61af68a8f7
2 changed files with 153 additions and 21 deletions

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.github/workflows/ci.yml vendored Normal file
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# Runs the same checks as the README's "Checks" section, plus a guard that
# the generated TypeScript types are in sync with the Go structs.
name: CI
on:
push:
branches: [main]
pull_request:
jobs:
go:
name: Go (test, lint, generated types)
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-go@v5
with:
go-version-file: go.mod
- name: Test
run: go test ./...
- name: gofmt
run: test -z "$(gofmt -l .)"
- name: Generated types are in sync
run: |
go generate ./...
git diff --exit-code web/src/types/
- name: Lint
uses: golangci/golangci-lint-action@v8
with:
version: latest
web:
name: Web (type-check, lint, test, build)
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
defaults:
run:
working-directory: web
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: lts/*
cache: npm
cache-dependency-path: web/package-lock.json
- name: Install
run: npm ci
- name: Type-check
run: npm run type-check
- name: Lint
run: npm run lint
- name: Unit tests
run: npm run test:unit -- --run
- name: Build
run: npm run build

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README.md
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# spreadlab
Self-hosted dashboard that runs an agent-based deepfake-spread model live:
change the levers, watch the spread, and (later) search for the best
intervention under a budget. Output is illustrative, not validated.
[![CI](https://github.com/JustinZeus/spreadlab/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/JustinZeus/spreadlab/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
Status: milestone 2, thin API + parity page done.
An agent-based "what if" dashboard for a hard question: when harmful content
(the modelled case: a non-consensual deepfake) starts spreading through a
school year group, where does a limited education budget actually make a
difference?
## Layout
> **Illustrative, not validated.** spreadlab is a planning and discussion
> aid. The model is a deliberately simple social-contagion simulation; its
> numbers are not predictions about real schools, real platforms, or real
> incidents, and must not be used as such.
- `internal/engine/` - the pure simulation engine (no web dependencies)
- `internal/api/` - thin JSON API over the engine
- `cmd/spreadlab/` - the server binary (`-table` prints a CLI comparison)
- `web/` - Vue 3 + TypeScript frontend (Vite)
- `web/src/types/` - TypeScript types GENERATED from the Go structs; never
edit by hand, regenerate with `go generate ./...`
## The idea
## Development
Schools can rarely reach everyone with a prevention program. spreadlab runs
the *same* outbreak in the *same* simulated social network under different
education strategies, so the only thing that changes is who gets educated.
With the default world (120 students, educate 30% of them):
One command (installs frontend deps on first run, Ctrl-C stops everything):
| Strategy | Reached by the fake |
| -------------------------- | ------------------- |
| No program | 82% |
| Educate 30% at random | 58% |
| Educate the 30% best-connected | 6% |
Same budget, different targeting, an order-of-magnitude difference. Making
that lever visible (and later: searching for the best intervention under a
budget) is the point of the tool.
## How the model works
- **Network**: Holme-Kim preferential attachment with triangle closure
(Holme & Kim, 2002), producing the hubs and clustered friend groups of
real social networks; a port of networkx's `powerlaw_cluster_graph`.
- **Spread**: an independent cascade (Kempe, Kleinberg & Tardos, 2003);
each directed edge gets one random forwarding draw, shared across all
scenarios, so strategies are compared in the same world.
- **Education lever**: an educated student still receives the fake but
never forwards it. Strategies: no program, uniform random, most-connected.
- **Determinism**: every source of randomness flows from seeds in the
config; identical configs produce identical results, pinned by tests.
## Status
Early development; interface and API are not stable yet.
- [x] Simulation engine in Go (tested, deterministic, benchmarked)
- [x] JSON API + TypeScript types generated from the Go structs
- [x] Web frontend reproducing the three-scenario comparison from live data
- [ ] Interactive dashboard (controls, network view, spread animation)
- [ ] Single-binary deploy (embedded frontend), Docker image, hosted demo
- [ ] Intervention optimisation under a budget
## Quick start (development)
Prerequisites: Go 1.26+, Node 20+.
```sh
git clone https://github.com/JustinZeus/spreadlab
cd spreadlab
./dev.sh
```
Or manually, in two terminals:
`dev.sh` starts the Go API (localhost:8080) and the Vite dev server
(localhost:5173, proxying `/api`), and installs frontend dependencies on
first run. One Ctrl-C stops everything. Or run the two halves manually:
```sh
go run ./cmd/spreadlab # API on localhost:8080
cd web && npm run dev # Vite dev server, proxies /api to :8080
cd web && npm run dev # frontend on localhost:5173
```
Checks:
`go run ./cmd/spreadlab -table` prints the three-scenario comparison to the
terminal as a quick engine sanity check.
## Project layout
| Path | What it is |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| `internal/engine/` | Pure simulation engine; no web dependencies |
| `internal/api/` | Thin JSON API over the engine |
| `cmd/spreadlab/` | Server binary |
| `web/` | Vue 3 + TypeScript frontend (Vite) |
| `web/src/types/` | TypeScript types generated from the Go structs |
The Go structs in `internal/engine/scenario.go` are the single source of
truth for parameters and results. `web/src/types/` is generated from them
(via [tygo](https://github.com/gzuidhof/tygo)); never edit those files by
hand. After changing `Config`, `Result`, or the API response types:
```sh
go test ./... # engine + API tests
golangci-lint run ./... # Go linter
go generate ./...
```
## Checks
```sh
go test ./... # engine + API tests
golangci-lint run ./... # Go linter
go test -bench=. -benchmem ./internal/engine/ # benchmark baseline
cd web && npm run test:unit && npm run lint && npm run type-check
```
After changing `Config`, `Result`, or the API response types, run
`go generate ./...` and commit the regenerated files in `web/src/types/`.
CI runs the same checks, plus a guard that the generated TypeScript types
are in sync with the Go structs.
MIT licensed.
## Background
spreadlab started as the proof-of-concept tool of a university grant
proposal on AI in an open society; the model semantics were ported from the
Python prototype used in that project's pitch. The subject is handled from
the prevention side only: the tool models how harmful content spreads and
what education changes, nothing about creating such content.
References: P. Holme & B. J. Kim, *Growing scale-free networks with tunable
clustering* (Phys. Rev. E 65, 2002). D. Kempe, J. Kleinberg & E. Tardos,
*Maximizing the spread of influence through a social network* (KDD 2003).
## License
[MIT](LICENSE)