A C++23 HTTP server for collecting and storing metrics about ICICLE project components

Overview • Quick Start • API • Deployment • Documentation

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Overview

ICICLE Insights collects and stores metrics for the ICICLE research project — tracking repositories and accounts across Git hosting platforms (GitHub) and container registries.

Metrics tracked include: stars, forks, clones, views, watchers, followers.

The server exposes a REST API for querying stored data and runs a background sync task every two weeks to pull fresh statistics from platform APIs.

Prerequisites

• C++23 compiler (GCC 13+, Clang 17+, or Apple Clang 15+)
• Conan 2.x
• CMake 3.25+
• Ninja
• just
• PostgreSQL

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/guzman109/icicle-insights.git
cd icicle-insights

Create a .env file:

# Required
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/icicle_insights
GITHUB_TOKEN=your_github_token

# Optional
HOST=127.0.0.1    # default: 127.0.0.1
PORT=3000         # default: 3000
LOG_LEVEL=info    # trace | debug | info | warn | error
SSL_CERT_FILE=    # path to CA bundle (macOS: /opt/homebrew/etc/ca-certificates/cert.pem)

Build and run:

just full-build   # install deps, configure, build
just run          # start the server on http://localhost:3000

API

Core

Method	Path	Description
GET	/health	Database connectivity check
GET	/routes	List all registered routes

GitHub Accounts

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/github/accounts	List all accounts
POST	/api/github/accounts	Create an account
GET	/api/github/accounts/:id	Get account by ID
DELETE	/api/github/accounts/:id	Delete account

GitHub Repositories

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/github/repos	List all repositories
POST	/api/github/repos	Create a repository
GET	/api/github/repos/:id	Get repository by ID
DELETE	/api/github/repos/:id	Delete repository

Deployment

The CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions) packages the application into an Alpine Linux Docker image using Buildx and pushes to GHCR.

# Pull and run the latest image
docker pull ghcr.io/icicle-ai/insights:latest
docker run -p 3000:3000 --env-file .env ghcr.io/icicle-ai/insights:latest

To publish a release, push a version tag:

git tag v1.0.0 && git push origin v1.0.0

This triggers the full pipeline: Docker image → GitHub Release with binary tarball extracted from the Alpine image.

Local Docker build

just build   # build image locally
just run     # run with .env
just start   # start existing container
just stop    # stop container
just rm      # remove container

Development

Common Commands

just deps          # Install Conan dependencies
just cmake-setup   # Configure CMake
just cmake-build   # Compile
just local-run     # Run the server locally
just cmake         # deps + cmake-setup + cmake-build
just cmake-clean   # wipe build dir and rebuild

Project Structure

.
├── include/insights/
│   ├── core/        # Config, error handling, logging, scheduler, HTTP status
│   ├── db/          # Database layer (Database struct, DbTraits, DbEntity concept)
│   ├── github/      # GitHub models, routes, and sync tasks
│   └── server/      # HTTP server setup and middleware
├── src/
│   ├── core/        # Health check and route listing endpoints
│   ├── github/      # Route handlers and sync task implementation
│   └── insights.cpp # Entry point
├── docs/            # Developer documentation
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── build.yaml  # CI/CD: build → Docker → release
├── Dockerfile       # Runtime image (ubuntu:24.04)
├── conanfile.py     # Conan dependencies
├── CMakeLists.txt   # Build configuration
└── justfile         # Build command runner

Code Style

LLVM naming conventions throughout:

Construct	Convention	Example
Types	PascalCase	Platform, HttpStatus
Variables	PascalCase	Database, Config
Functions	lowerCamelCase	registerRoutes(), syncStats()
Enumerators	PascalCase	Ok, BadRequest
Members	PascalCase	.Id, .Name, .AccountId

Dependencies

Package	Version	Purpose
asio	1.36.0	Async I/O, timers, thread pool
openssl	—	TLS for outbound HTTP requests
glaze	main	HTTP server, router, JSON
libpqxx	7.10.5	PostgreSQL C++ client
spdlog	1.17.0	Structured logging

Documentation

• Architecture — module structure, core patterns, data model, design decisions
• Developer Guide — how to add routes, tasks, loggers; debugging tips

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.

Acknowledgments

Part of the ICICLE (Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment) initiative.