← Babysitting Business Kit

Run your own server, step by step

The app works on its own in your browser. The optional server adds three things: your website's form turns each inquiry into a scored lead (with a phone alert, and an instant reply email if you want one), a calendar link your phone can subscribe to, and a morning to-do list. It runs on your hosting account. Nobody else, including the people who wrote it, can see your data or your bill.

If a friend is helping you, they can do steps 1 to 3; you only need the two keys at the end.

What it costs

Option A: Render (simplest)

1. Make a free GitHub account if you do not have one.
2. Open the one-click deploy page, choose Render, and follow it. It copies just this kit into a new repository in your GitHub account and opens Render with the kit's render.yaml. (Or fork the repository yourself and use https://render.com/deploy?repo=<your fork>.)
3. Render shows the settings. It generates ADMIN_KEY and CAL_TOKEN for you. Leave the optional ones blank for now. Pick your time zone in TZ (for example America/New_York).
4. Click Apply. The first build takes a few minutes. When it is live you get an address like https://babysitting-desk-xxxx.onrender.com.
5. In the service's Environment tab, copy ADMIN_KEY and CAL_TOKEN into a password manager.

Option B: Fly.io (cheaper, needs the command line)

1. Install flyctl and run fly auth signup (or fly auth login).
2. Get the kit: download it from the deploy page (Fly.io) or copy the ventures/babysitting-business-kit folder, and open a terminal in it.
3. Run, one line at a time (choose your own app name; Fly names are shared by everyone):

   fly launch --copy-config --no-deploy --dockerfile Dockerfile --name my-sitter-desk
   fly volumes create state --size 1 --region iad
   fly secrets set ADMIN_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 16) CAL_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 12)
   fly deploy

4. Before fly secrets set, you can print the two values with openssl rand -hex 16 and openssl rand -hex 12, save them in a password manager, then paste them in. Fly will not show a secret again.
5. Your address is https://my-sitter-desk.fly.dev. The kit's fly.toml keeps one machine always on, because your data lives on its volume and the morning digest needs it awake.

Option C: Docker on a box you already have

ADMIN_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 16) CAL_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 12) docker compose up -d

From the kit's folder, with docker-compose.yml. Put it behind HTTPS (Caddy, nginx or a tunnel) before families use the form.

Connect the app

Open your server's address in your browser: it serves the same app. In Settings, under "Sync with your own server", enter the address and your ADMIN_KEY, then press Sync now. Leads that arrive through your website are merged in; the key is kept in that browser only.

Connect your website form

• Use the server's page: your website is already live at https://your-address/site, with the form wired up. Share that link, or point your own domain at it.
• Host the page elsewhere (GitHub Pages, Netlify): in Settings, set "Website form address" to https://your-address/inquiry, then download the website again from the Website tab.

Test it: fill in the form yourself. The lead should appear in the Leads tab after the next sync. The form has a hidden spam trap and accepts at most 10 messages an hour from one address.

Subscribe your phone's calendar

Your feed is https://your-address/calendar.ics?t=CAL_TOKEN (your own token in place of CAL_TOKEN). Anyone with that link can see your sits, so share it with no one.

• iPhone: Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Subscribed Calendar, and paste the link.
• Google Calendar (Android): on a computer, open calendar.google.com → Other calendars → + → From URL, and paste the link. Google can take several hours to pick up a change.

Settings (environment variables)

Late-sit safety check-in

The app's Safety tab can start a check-in before a late sit: a trusted contact and a "home by" time. It needs no new settings, only texts (TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID and friends) or email (RESEND_API_KEY, FROM_EMAIL) already set up; with neither, the server refuses the check-in so you never rely on one that cannot fire. At the home-by time the server pings you (your NOTIFY_WEBHOOK_URL or NOTIFY_EMAIL) with your private link, PUBLIC_URL/safe/<token>, where you tap "I'm home safe", extend or cancel. After the grace period it texts or emails your contact your name, phone, the time and only the place you chose to share, never anything about the children, and an all-clear when you check in. Unlike the automations, it ignores quiet hours: a safety alert goes out at any hour. The server checks every minute, so an alert can be up to a minute late; it is a backup, not an emergency service.

Backups and the status page

• Every save is written to a temporary file and then renamed, so a crash cannot leave half a file.
• Once a day the server keeps a snapshot; the newest 14 are kept on the disk.
• If the data file is ever damaged, the server does not overwrite it: it moves it aside as desk.json.corrupt-<time>, logs that, and starts from the newest good snapshot.
• https://your-address/admin asks for your admin key and shows the version, lead counts, the last morning digest, which integrations are on (names only, never values), disk use, and the snapshots, with buttons to download one or restore from it or from a file. A restore saves the current desk first.
• Snapshots live on the same disk as your data. For a copy that survives losing the disk, set the BACKUP_S3_* settings, or download a backup from /admin now and then.

You are the operator

Your copy runs on your account: you choose who sees it, you pay the host, and you keep the keys. Families' messages are stored in your server's file and only leave it through services you switch on. Keep the server updated by redeploying from the latest kit now and then.