TwoMice

Anonymous imageboard-style social media — where identity is earned, not assumed.

TwoMice combines the topic-focused discussion of imageboards with a friendship layer that makes identity optional. Everyone is anonymous by default — your profile, username, and post history are invisible until a mutual friend request is accepted by both sides.

Features

Anonymous by default Usernames, profiles, and post histories are hidden from everyone. You're just another voice in the thread.	Earned identity Friendship is mutual — only when both sides accept does either person's identity become visible to the other.
Imageboard structure Boards → Posts → Comments → Replies, with upvotes and downvotes throughout.	Moderation tools Reports, mutes, bans, thread locks, post deletion, and a full moderation log accessible from an admin panel.

Architecture

Six independent Rust microservices, each with its own PostgreSQL database. The React frontend talks only to the API gateway, which validates sessions and routes requests.

graph TD
    Browser["Browser\nReact SPA\n5173 dev / 80 prod"]
    Gateway["Gateway (8080)\naxum — session validation + routing"]
    Auth["Auth (8081)"]
    Post["Post (8082)"]
    Mod["Moderation (8083)"]
    Social["Social (8084)"]
    Feed["Social Feed (8085)"]
    auth-db[(auth-db)]
    post-db[(post-db)]
    mod-db[(moderation-db)]
    social-db[(social-db)]
    feed-db[(social-feed-db)]

    Browser -->|"/api → gateway"| Gateway
    Gateway --> Auth
    Gateway --> Post
    Gateway --> Mod
    Gateway --> Social
    Gateway --> Feed
    Auth --> auth-db
    Post --> post-db
    Mod --> mod-db
    Social --> social-db
    Feed --> feed-db

Loading

Service	Port	Responsibility
gateway	8080	Single entry point — session validation, token caching, request routing
auth	8081	Accounts, sessions, login/signup/logout
post	8082	Boards, posts, comments, replies, votes
moderation	8083	Reports, moderation actions
social	8084	Friend requests, friendships
social-feed	8085	Board follows, personalized feed

Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Rust + axum
Database	PostgreSQL — one per service, accessed via sqlx with compile-time checked queries
Frontend	React 19 + TypeScript + Vite 7
IDs	Snowflake BIGINT (distributed-friendly)
Passwords	Argon2id
Deployment	Docker Compose + Caddy + GitHub Actions

Development

See DEVELOPMENT.md for setup instructions, running locally, database migrations, and deployment.