Technology

The platform itself

What the site is built with, and what serves it.

  • Drupal Content platform and editorial workflow
  • PHP The application language
  • Symfony HTTP, routing and the service container
  • TypeScript Typed services at the edge
  • PostgreSQL The record of everything the platform holds
  • Redis Caching, so a page is assembled once
  • Twig Templates, kept apart from the logic
  • Composer Dependencies pinned and reproducible
  • Node.js The build toolchain
  • Python Checks, imagery and the operational scripts

Operating system, containers and delivery

Where it runs, and how it reaches a reader.

  • Linux The operating system underneath all of it
  • Docker Every service in its own container
  • Container networking Services that reach each other and nothing else
  • Caddy The web server, and its certificates
  • API gateway One front door, with the rules applied at it
  • Cloudflare Edge network, DNS and delivery
  • Load balancing Traffic spread across healthy instances Planned
  • Container orchestration Scheduling and scaling as the platform grows Planned
  • CDN and object storage Media served from close to the reader Planned

Security and operations

How it is kept standing, and kept honest.

  • Web application firewall Hostile traffic filtered before it arrives
  • TLS everywhere Encrypted end to end, renewed automatically
  • Infrastructure as code The server described in a repository, not in somebody’s memory
  • Audit trail Every administrative action recorded
  • Control plane The server operated through one door, with every action logged
  • Monitoring and health checks Machine, containers and services, watched continuously
  • Automated provisioning A machine brought up from a description, not by hand Planned
  • Secret management Credentials held outside the code, and rotatable
  • Off-site backup Dated, pulled, and restorable
  • Continuous integration Conventions checked on every change

Build and release

How a change gets from written to live.

  • Git Every change with its reason attached
  • Code review Nothing reaches the island unread
  • Automated tests The failures worth catching, pinned
  • Static analysis Mistakes found before they run
  • Build pipeline One command from source to a deployable payload
  • Staged deployment Backed up, applied, and checked in that order
  • Rollback Every deploy reversible to the one before it
  • Artifact registry Builds kept and addressable by version Planned
  • Zero-downtime releases A new version proven before the old one stops Planned

Artificial intelligence

Where the platform reasons rather than retrieves.

  • Large language models Translation, summaries and the assistant
  • Visitor assistant Answers about the island, on the site and in chat
  • Machine translation Three languages from one piece of writing
  • Image understanding Describing and checking contributed photographs Planned
  • Ranking and extraction Turning free text into structured facts Planned

Data and science

Where the island’s figures come from.

  • NASA Daily satellite imagery of Kish and the Gulf
  • Meteorological archives Weather back to 1940, and today’s forecast
  • Astronomical almanac Sun, moon and the visible planets
  • OpenStreetMap Places, matched and confirmed by people
  • Analytics and reporting Measured on our own servers, not sold on
  • Free Zone open data Published figures and notices about the island
  • RSS and web feeds News read from its source, as it is published
  • Structured web reading Public pages turned into checkable records
  • X (Twitter) signals What is being said about Kish, watched and summarised Planned
  • Search and trend signals What the island is being asked about Planned

Channels and integrations

How the island’s information travels.

  • Instagram Daily cards, and replies to readers
  • Telegram A channel and a bot
  • Bale The same, for readers inside Iran
  • SMS gateway Verification and notices
  • Mail delivery Transactional mail from our own domain
  • X (Twitter) Posting and listening, designed Planned
  • WhatsApp Designed, not yet built Planned