Notivae

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🏗️ Architecture Overview ​

Notivae is designed as a modular, scalable, and self-hosted collaborative markdown editor. Understanding its architecture helps you grasp how components interact and how to deploy, extend, or contribute to the project.

High-Level Components ​

  • Frontend (Vue + Vite)
    A modern single-page application providing the user interface for editing, navigation, commenting, and collaboration.

  • Backend API (Python FastAPI)
    Serves REST and WebSocket endpoints to handle authentication, document management, versioning, access control, and CRDT-based synchronization.

  • Database (PostgreSQL)
    Stores users, workspaces, collections, documents, snapshots, comments, permissions, etc.

Component Interaction ​

+----------+            +--------------+          +----------------+
| Frontend | <--REST--> | Backend      | <--DB--> | Database       |
| (Vue)    | <---WS---> | (FastAPI)    |          | (PostgreSQL)   |
+----------+            +--------------+          +----------------+

Deployment Model ​

  • All components run inside Docker containers orchestrated via docker-compose.
  • Ports are exposed for the frontend and backend.
  • Persistent storage is configured for database files and user data.

Offline-First and Sync ​

  • The frontend keeps a local replica of documents.
  • Changes are applied locally and synced in the background via CRDTs.
  • This approach guarantees no lost edits, even when offline or on unstable connections.

Security and Access Control ​

  • Authentication is handled by the backend with support for email/password and OAuth/OIDC.
  • Access to documents and collections is controlled using ABAC policies evaluated on the backend.
  • All communications are secured via HTTPS in production (reverse proxy recommended).

This modular design enables Notivae to be extended with features like API integrations, and enhanced collaboration tools without breaking core principles of privacy, ownership, and offline resilience.