Inspecting with Atlas

@openplaces/atlas is a visual inspector for the search process. Attach it to a client and it opens the hosted inspector in your browser, where every search streams live to the map, places appearing in real time.

Installation

npm install @openplaces/atlas

The package exports a single plugin, atlas, which you pass to the constructor:

import { OpenPlaces } from "openplaces";
import { atlas } from "@openplaces/atlas";

const client = new OpenPlaces({ atlas });

await client.places.search("cafes in copenhagen");

The plugin subscribes to the client's "query" and "place" events, so everything the stream yields is mirrored to the inspector as it happens, whether you call places.search or places.stream.

Requirements

The inspector page is served over HTTPS, so the local bridge it connects to must be served over HTTPS as well. The plugin generates a locally-trusted certificate with mkcert. Install mkcert and run mkcert -install once; if certificate generation fails, the plugin prints instructions and exits the process rather than continuing without a secure bridge. The generated certificate is cached, so mkcert only runs on first use.

What to expect

When the plugin is constructed, it starts a local bridge and opens your system browser to the inspector UI. The page renders the events as they arrive: the query as a header, the places as markers accumulating on the map, deduplicated by place.id. A tab opened or refreshed mid-search immediately catches up on the search in progress, and when your script finishes, the process exits and the tab keeps the final state.

Configuration

Set the OPENPLACES_ATLAS_URL environment variable to open a different inspector URL — useful when developing the UI itself — instead of the default https://atlas.openplaces.danielbacsur.dev.