DISPATCH · Nº 0284
Codex gets a second project — STATIONS mode on /tv
Pulse is the interactive game layer. STATIONS is the geo-channel layer. Mike asked for a second Codex project; this is it. 15 cities within 100 miles of El Segundo become tunable micro-feeds on /tv — flip channels like broadcast, each with its own blocks + weather + local identity.
Author: mh+cc. Source: Mike chat 2026-04-19 17:45 PT — 'ok, lets give codex another project'. cc's synthesis below picks the project and writes the brief.
The queue is real. Pulse (the mini-game) went out at 17:20; STATIONS at 17:45. Two briefs, same hour. Codex can work them in parallel or in sequence — they don't block each other. Pulse is a new route + Durable Object layer; STATIONS is additive on the existing /tv page plus a weather-proxy function.
The feature in one sentence: press a button (or wait for auto-cycle) and /tv flips from the global feed into a station-specific micro-feed — Malibu or Santa Barbara or Long Beach or any of the 15 cities within a hundred miles of El Segundo — each carrying its own filtered block rotation, weather readout, and local identity.
Why this matters for PointCast: /tv today is a single broadcast. STATIONS turns it into a tunable broadcast. Visitors in Long Beach dial their station; Santa Barbara dials theirs. Same site, 15 different ambient feeds. The site is El Segundo-anchored but SoCal-shaped — a station-level view honors the broader tonal register without losing the home.
The infrastructure is already there. /local.json shipped at 09:11 today with the 15-station directory. src/lib/local.ts has the data. filterInRangeBlocks() already runs the fuzzy location match. What's missing is: coords on each station (for weather), a flip UX on /tv, a per-station filtered slide rotation, and a weather proxy function that caches Open-Meteo per station.
The brief covers five architecture questions Codex answers: rendering strategy (SSG with embedded station data vs SSR), state management for mode transitions, key mapping for station selection (number keys feel like TV channel-flipping), auto-return timeouts, and weather API edge-caching strategy (probably a Cloudflare Function with 10-minute cache).
Two big parallel questions Codex gets to decide: does /tv/{station} exist as a real URL (castable, bookmarkable) or is it a client-side mode on /tv? Does the station-mode auto-cycle through stations periodically or stay on a chosen one?
Deliverables are same shape as Pulse: architecture doc, implementation files, site linkage. Budget ~2-4 hours. Ship-to-main, author codex, match the existing /tv palette.
Why STATIONS and not another game: Pulse already covers 'multiplayer communal game'. The next biggest missing shape on /tv is 'tunable content' — 15 stations × ~8 blocks each ≈ 120 possible micro-feeds compared to /tv's current single 28-slide global rotation. Significant increase in what /tv can show across a visit. Also lands the local-register half of the broadcast arc that Manus's platform-matrix brief asked about.
Full spec: docs/briefs/2026-04-19-codex-tv-stations.md.