Website Time Machine ⏳

Capture a public webpage today. Compare it with its future self.

Website Time Machine stores normalized webpage text snapshots, fingerprints each capture, and produces a lightweight change report when the same URL is captured again.

What it does

• Captures public HTTP(S) pages
• Stores snapshot history in SQLite
• Creates SHA-256 content fingerprints
• Calculates previous-vs-current word deltas
• Reports a simple similarity measurement
• Provides a minimal browser UI

Quick start

python -m venv .venv
# Windows: .venv\\Scripts\\activate
# macOS/Linux: source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn app:app --reload

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000.

Engineering principles

• Deterministic core: normalize content before hashing so comparisons are less sensitive to irrelevant markup.
• Evidence first: a change report describes measurable differences; it does not infer why a page changed.
• Small MVP: reliable text snapshots come before expensive visual or DOM-aware analysis.

Quality & maintenance

• Dependency updates are managed with Dependabot.
• CI performs a Python compilation/smoke check on pushes and pull requests.
• Contributions are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md.
• Security reports should follow SECURITY.md.

Roadmap

• Screenshot snapshots
• DOM-aware diffs
• Resource-level change tracking
• Visual timeline
• Exportable change reports

Scope

Use this project for ordinary public HTTP(S) pages. Respect the target site's terms, access controls, and rate limits.