Marketing · Weekend build
Build your own Transistor
One valid RSS feed. The directories do the rest. Transistor charges $19–$99 per month — that’s $228–$1188 a year — for something you can replace with focused software of your own. Here is the honest scope, the honest timeline, and the exact prompt to hand your coding agent.
Who this replacement is for
This build targets one podcaster publishing a single show. The goal: host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. If you need more than that, keep paying — the point of building it yourself is owning a tool shaped exactly like your workflow, not re-implementing a venture-funded roadmap.
Same build, different logo: this v1 also replaces Buzzsprout and Captivate — they all solve the same core job.
How long it actually takes
One number would be a lie, so here are three. Each tier is a real, usable product — pick the one that matches how much of Transistor you actually use.
| Estimate | What you get |
|---|---|
| 8 hours | episode uploads, valid rss feed, episode pages |
| 3 days | scheduled publishing, private feeds, transcripts, richer analytics |
| 1 month+ | iab analytics, dynamic ads, multiple shows, site builder — the part you should probably skip |
What a minimal Transistor alternative needs
- episode uploads to object storage with metadata
- a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork
- public episode pages with player and show notes
- download counts per episode per day
- a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation
Data model
Show, Episode, Chapter, DownloadEvent
Integrations
R2 object storage, feed validator services
Capability context
Astro, Workers, R2
The guardrail
Never break the published feed: keep episode GUIDs stable forever, keep enclosure URLs permanent, and validate against the spec before every publish.
Deliberate non-goals
Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
The complete build prompt
Copy this into your coding agent of choice. It is scoped for a useful v1 — journeys, screens, business rules, data model, security, tests, and acceptance scenarios included. Pick your stack:
You are building a production-ready software product named “Podshed”, a deliberately focused alternative to Transistor. Build a complete, usable vertical slice—not a landing page, static mockup, or disconnected collection of components. WORKING AGREEMENT Before writing implementation code, produce a short technical plan that names the routes or pages, server actions or endpoints, data tables, important state transitions, authorization boundaries, background jobs, and external adapters. Resolve contradictions in favor of the narrow audience and non-goals below. Prefer a small, legible architecture over speculative abstraction, but do not omit persistence, validation, error handling, or tests. PRODUCT BRIEF Primary user: one podcaster publishing a single show. Primary outcome: host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. Product principle: optimize the exact workflow below instead of copying the full breadth of Transistor. A first-time user should understand what to do from the interface itself, without a tour or documentation. END-TO-END USER JOURNEYS Implement all of these flows through the real interface and persistent data layer: 1. The podcaster creates the show with artwork and category metadata, uploads the first episode with chapters, and previews the generated RSS feed. 2. The podcaster validates the feed, walks the submit-to-directories checklist for Apple and Spotify, and marks each directory submitted. 3. A listener’s app fetches the feed and downloads an episode, and the podcaster reads that day’s download counts on the dashboard. SCREENS AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE Build these as coherent responsive views. Each screen must specify its primary action, secondary actions, visible status, validation feedback, empty state, loading or pending state, success confirmation, and recoverable failure state. 1. Show settings: title, description, artwork upload with dimension validation, category, explicit flag, owner email, and the feed URL with a copy button. 2. Episodes: a list with publish state, duration, file size, download totals, and a new-episode upload with metadata and chapter editing. 3. Episode page: a public player, show notes, chapter list, publish date, and subscribe links to the major apps. 4. Dashboard: per-episode daily download charts, feed validation status, and the directories checklist with per-directory state. CORE CAPABILITIES 1. episode uploads to object storage with metadata 2. a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork 3. public episode pages with player and show notes 4. download counts per episode per day 5. a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation DETAILED BEHAVIOR AND BUSINESS RULES Treat these as server-enforced product requirements, not interface suggestions: 1. Generate the feed against the RSS and podcast-namespace specs and refuse to publish an episode that would make the feed invalid. 2. Assign each episode a permanent GUID and enclosure URL at publish time and never change either afterward. 3. Count a download once per file per client per day using coarse signals only, and never store listener identifiers. 4. Serve audio with byte-range support so podcast apps can stream and resume correctly. DATA MODEL AND LIFECYCLE Design a small relational schema centered on Show, Episode, Chapter, DownloadEvent. Before implementing it, document: 1. Each table’s purpose, primary key, ownership or tenant boundary, timestamps, status fields, and important attributes. 2. Foreign keys, uniqueness constraints, check constraints, indexes needed by the named screens, and transaction boundaries for multi-record changes. 3. The allowed lifecycle or state transitions, who may trigger each transition, which transitions are terminal or reversible, and what audit history must remain immutable. 4. Archive, retention, and deletion behavior, including what happens to dependent records and external files. 5. Idempotency strategy for submissions, jobs, imports, notifications, webhooks, or retries where applicable. Use migrations rather than ad-hoc schema creation. Store time instants consistently and retain named timezone context whenever local schedules or dates matter. Never rely on a counter, disabled button, or client-side check to preserve a business invariant. USERS, AUTHENTICATION, AND PERMISSIONS Implement only the roles required by the stated audience. Make the ownership and visibility model explicit before coding. Enforce authorization in every server-side query and mutation, including search, exports, attachments, live updates, and guessed URLs—not merely by hiding controls. Use secure session defaults, protect state-changing requests, and provide an understandable signed-out, expired-session, and forbidden state. Seed distinct users when multiple roles are required so permissions can be demonstrated and tested. INTERACTION AND VISUAL DIRECTION The product should feel fast, calm, focused, and credible rather than like a generic admin template. Use a clear visual hierarchy, restrained color, readable typography, generous hit targets, and consistent placement for primary actions. Start with server-rendered HTML and progressively enhance only the interactions that benefit from it. The core workflow must remain understandable if enhancement fails. Start with server-rendered Astro pages and ordinary HTML forms. Use HTMX for form submissions, partial navigation, and server-driven updates, then Alpine.js only for small local browser state. The core workflow must remain understandable if either enhancement layer fails. Design mobile layouts intentionally instead of simply stacking desktop panels. Support keyboard navigation, visible focus, semantic landmarks, explicit labels, useful page titles, reduced-motion preferences, and screen-reader announcements for asynchronous results. Never use color alone to communicate state. Destructive actions require clear scope and confirmation; safe repeated actions should be idempotent. TECHNICAL DIRECTION Build this version with the AHA stack: Astro for routing, layouts, and server-rendered pages; HTMX for interactions that benefit from HTML fragment responses; and Alpine.js for small, local interface state. Prefer Cloudflare D1 for relational persistence, R2 for object storage, Workers for server endpoints and scheduled work, Durable Objects only for coordinated real-time state, and Workflows or Queues for durable background jobs—but only when the product requirements call for them. Keep domain rules in testable server-side modules instead of route handlers or UI components. Separate persistence, external providers, and background work behind small interfaces without building a framework. Prefer ordinary HTML forms and URLs for durable navigation; use optimistic interaction only when failure can be reconciled clearly. The product brief currently identifies Astro, Workers, R2 as capability context. Preserve any required native, browser-only, edge, storage, real-time, or background-processing capability through a narrow adapter appropriate to the selected framework. If the core workflow genuinely requires native or browser APIs, keep that runtime as the primary execution surface rather than simulating inaccessible capabilities or inventing an unnecessary web surface. Integrate with R2 object storage and feed validator services. For every integration: - List required environment variables in an .env.example without real secrets. - Add a small adapter with timeouts, normalized errors, and a deterministic local fake or development path. - Verify inbound signatures and deduplicate provider events where supported. - Keep credentials server-side, encrypt long-lived provider tokens at rest, and redact secrets and sensitive payloads from logs. - Define retry, backoff, and idempotency behavior for any side effect that can be repeated. SECURITY AND PRIVACY Never break the published feed: keep episode GUIDs stable forever, keep enclosure URLs permanent, and validate against the spec before every publish. Validate, normalize, and length-limit all untrusted input on the server. Escape rendered content by default, sanitize any intentionally accepted markup, rate-limit public or abuse-prone actions, and use private object storage plus short-lived authorized URLs for sensitive files. Collect the minimum personal data necessary for the named workflow. Document retention and deletion behavior. Add specific protections for the riskier surfaces in this app, such as uploads, redirects, outbound requests, email delivery, OAuth, webhooks, CSV import or export, and real-time connections. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIOS Automate these app-specific scenarios at the most appropriate level: 1. Editing an episode’s title updates the feed without changing its GUID, so subscribed apps don’t re-download or duplicate the episode. 2. An artwork file below the directory minimum dimensions is rejected at upload with the exact requirement instead of failing at submission time. 3. Given a feed fetch from a podcast app, the response validates cleanly and includes chapters and artwork metadata for the latest episode. TESTING Add focused unit tests for state transitions, authorization predicates, normalization, date or money calculations, and other risky domain rules. Add integration tests for persistence constraints and each external adapter’s success, timeout, retry, and rejection paths. Add at least one browser-level test for every end-to-end journey above, including one small-screen viewport. Tests must use isolated data and run through a documented single command. OPERATIONS AND FAILURE RECOVERY Add structured server logs with request, job, or event correlation IDs but no secrets or unnecessarily sensitive data. Make failures actionable in both the interface and logs. Background work must expose pending, succeeded, failed, and retrying states where relevant; do not silently swallow errors. Include safe database migration and rollback guidance, seed data, backup and restore notes, external-data cleanup behavior, and a basic health or diagnostic path appropriate to the stack. DELIVERABLES Ship the working application, migrations, representative seed data, tests, .env.example, and a concise README. The README must cover prerequisites, local setup, environment variables, migrations, seed and test commands, deployment, integration setup, backup and restore, security decisions, and known limitations. Seed data should exercise the happy path plus at least one empty, failed, overdue, expired, archived, or permission-restricted state relevant to the product. DEFINITION OF DONE The app is complete when a fresh developer can follow the README, create and migrate the database, run the app, sign in as each relevant role, complete every named journey using real persisted data, refresh without losing state, recover from common failures, and use the core interface on phone and desktop. All acceptance scenarios pass, permission boundaries are covered by tests, and no core screen is left as a placeholder. NON-GOALS Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
You are building a production-ready software product named “Podshed”, a deliberately focused alternative to Transistor. Build a complete, usable vertical slice—not a landing page, static mockup, or disconnected collection of components. WORKING AGREEMENT Before writing implementation code, produce a short technical plan that names the routes or pages, server actions or endpoints, data tables, important state transitions, authorization boundaries, background jobs, and external adapters. Resolve contradictions in favor of the narrow audience and non-goals below. Prefer a small, legible architecture over speculative abstraction, but do not omit persistence, validation, error handling, or tests. PRODUCT BRIEF Primary user: one podcaster publishing a single show. Primary outcome: host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. Product principle: optimize the exact workflow below instead of copying the full breadth of Transistor. A first-time user should understand what to do from the interface itself, without a tour or documentation. END-TO-END USER JOURNEYS Implement all of these flows through the real interface and persistent data layer: 1. The podcaster creates the show with artwork and category metadata, uploads the first episode with chapters, and previews the generated RSS feed. 2. The podcaster validates the feed, walks the submit-to-directories checklist for Apple and Spotify, and marks each directory submitted. 3. A listener’s app fetches the feed and downloads an episode, and the podcaster reads that day’s download counts on the dashboard. SCREENS AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE Build these as coherent responsive views. Each screen must specify its primary action, secondary actions, visible status, validation feedback, empty state, loading or pending state, success confirmation, and recoverable failure state. 1. Show settings: title, description, artwork upload with dimension validation, category, explicit flag, owner email, and the feed URL with a copy button. 2. Episodes: a list with publish state, duration, file size, download totals, and a new-episode upload with metadata and chapter editing. 3. Episode page: a public player, show notes, chapter list, publish date, and subscribe links to the major apps. 4. Dashboard: per-episode daily download charts, feed validation status, and the directories checklist with per-directory state. CORE CAPABILITIES 1. episode uploads to object storage with metadata 2. a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork 3. public episode pages with player and show notes 4. download counts per episode per day 5. a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation DETAILED BEHAVIOR AND BUSINESS RULES Treat these as server-enforced product requirements, not interface suggestions: 1. Generate the feed against the RSS and podcast-namespace specs and refuse to publish an episode that would make the feed invalid. 2. Assign each episode a permanent GUID and enclosure URL at publish time and never change either afterward. 3. Count a download once per file per client per day using coarse signals only, and never store listener identifiers. 4. Serve audio with byte-range support so podcast apps can stream and resume correctly. DATA MODEL AND LIFECYCLE Design a small relational schema centered on Show, Episode, Chapter, DownloadEvent. Before implementing it, document: 1. Each table’s purpose, primary key, ownership or tenant boundary, timestamps, status fields, and important attributes. 2. Foreign keys, uniqueness constraints, check constraints, indexes needed by the named screens, and transaction boundaries for multi-record changes. 3. The allowed lifecycle or state transitions, who may trigger each transition, which transitions are terminal or reversible, and what audit history must remain immutable. 4. Archive, retention, and deletion behavior, including what happens to dependent records and external files. 5. Idempotency strategy for submissions, jobs, imports, notifications, webhooks, or retries where applicable. Use migrations rather than ad-hoc schema creation. Store time instants consistently and retain named timezone context whenever local schedules or dates matter. Never rely on a counter, disabled button, or client-side check to preserve a business invariant. USERS, AUTHENTICATION, AND PERMISSIONS Implement only the roles required by the stated audience. Make the ownership and visibility model explicit before coding. Enforce authorization in every server-side query and mutation, including search, exports, attachments, live updates, and guessed URLs—not merely by hiding controls. Use secure session defaults, protect state-changing requests, and provide an understandable signed-out, expired-session, and forbidden state. Seed distinct users when multiple roles are required so permissions can be demonstrated and tested. INTERACTION AND VISUAL DIRECTION The product should feel fast, calm, focused, and credible rather than like a generic admin template. Use a clear visual hierarchy, restrained color, readable typography, generous hit targets, and consistent placement for primary actions. Start with server-rendered HTML and progressively enhance only the interactions that benefit from it. The core workflow must remain understandable if enhancement fails. Render with React Server Components by default. Use Server Actions for authenticated form mutations and add Client Components only for interactions that genuinely require browser state, browser APIs, drag-and-drop, or live updates. The core workflow must remain understandable before client-side JavaScript finishes loading. Design mobile layouts intentionally instead of simply stacking desktop panels. Support keyboard navigation, visible focus, semantic landmarks, explicit labels, useful page titles, reduced-motion preferences, and screen-reader announcements for asynchronous results. Never use color alone to communicate state. Destructive actions require clear scope and confirmation; safe repeated actions should be idempotent. TECHNICAL DIRECTION Build this version with Next.js, the App Router, and TypeScript. Use Server Components by default, Server Actions for authenticated mutations, and Route Handlers for public APIs, OAuth callbacks, webhooks, feeds, uploads, and downloads. Use PostgreSQL through Drizzle ORM with versioned migrations and an isolated test database. Access S3-compatible object storage through a server-only adapter, and run slow or retryable work in a real job or workflow system instead of the request lifecycle. Keep domain rules in testable server-side modules instead of route handlers or UI components. Separate persistence, external providers, and background work behind small interfaces without building a framework. Prefer ordinary HTML forms and URLs for durable navigation; use optimistic interaction only when failure can be reconciled clearly. The product brief currently identifies Astro, Workers, R2 as capability context. Preserve any required native, browser-only, edge, storage, real-time, or background-processing capability through a narrow adapter appropriate to the selected framework. If the core workflow genuinely requires native or browser APIs, keep that runtime as the primary execution surface rather than simulating inaccessible capabilities or inventing an unnecessary web surface. Integrate with R2 object storage and feed validator services. For every integration: - List required environment variables in an .env.example without real secrets. - Add a small adapter with timeouts, normalized errors, and a deterministic local fake or development path. - Verify inbound signatures and deduplicate provider events where supported. - Keep credentials server-side, encrypt long-lived provider tokens at rest, and redact secrets and sensitive payloads from logs. - Define retry, backoff, and idempotency behavior for any side effect that can be repeated. SECURITY AND PRIVACY Never break the published feed: keep episode GUIDs stable forever, keep enclosure URLs permanent, and validate against the spec before every publish. Validate, normalize, and length-limit all untrusted input on the server. Escape rendered content by default, sanitize any intentionally accepted markup, rate-limit public or abuse-prone actions, and use private object storage plus short-lived authorized URLs for sensitive files. Collect the minimum personal data necessary for the named workflow. Document retention and deletion behavior. Add specific protections for the riskier surfaces in this app, such as uploads, redirects, outbound requests, email delivery, OAuth, webhooks, CSV import or export, and real-time connections. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIOS Automate these app-specific scenarios at the most appropriate level: 1. Editing an episode’s title updates the feed without changing its GUID, so subscribed apps don’t re-download or duplicate the episode. 2. An artwork file below the directory minimum dimensions is rejected at upload with the exact requirement instead of failing at submission time. 3. Given a feed fetch from a podcast app, the response validates cleanly and includes chapters and artwork metadata for the latest episode. TESTING Add focused unit tests for state transitions, authorization predicates, normalization, date or money calculations, and other risky domain rules. Add integration tests for persistence constraints and each external adapter’s success, timeout, retry, and rejection paths. Add at least one browser-level test for every end-to-end journey above, including one small-screen viewport. Tests must use isolated data and run through a documented single command. OPERATIONS AND FAILURE RECOVERY Add structured server logs with request, job, or event correlation IDs but no secrets or unnecessarily sensitive data. Make failures actionable in both the interface and logs. Background work must expose pending, succeeded, failed, and retrying states where relevant; do not silently swallow errors. Include safe database migration and rollback guidance, seed data, backup and restore notes, external-data cleanup behavior, and a basic health or diagnostic path appropriate to the stack. DELIVERABLES Ship the working application, migrations, representative seed data, tests, .env.example, and a concise README. The README must cover prerequisites, local setup, environment variables, migrations, seed and test commands, deployment, integration setup, backup and restore, security decisions, and known limitations. Seed data should exercise the happy path plus at least one empty, failed, overdue, expired, archived, or permission-restricted state relevant to the product. DEFINITION OF DONE The app is complete when a fresh developer can follow the README, create and migrate the database, run the app, sign in as each relevant role, complete every named journey using real persisted data, refresh without losing state, recover from common failures, and use the core interface on phone and desktop. All acceptance scenarios pass, permission boundaries are covered by tests, and no core screen is left as a placeholder. NON-GOALS Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
You are building a production-ready software product named “Podshed”, a deliberately focused alternative to Transistor. Build a complete, usable vertical slice—not a landing page, static mockup, or disconnected collection of components. WORKING AGREEMENT Before writing implementation code, produce a short technical plan that names the routes or pages, server actions or endpoints, data tables, important state transitions, authorization boundaries, background jobs, and external adapters. Resolve contradictions in favor of the narrow audience and non-goals below. Prefer a small, legible architecture over speculative abstraction, but do not omit persistence, validation, error handling, or tests. PRODUCT BRIEF Primary user: one podcaster publishing a single show. Primary outcome: host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. Product principle: optimize the exact workflow below instead of copying the full breadth of Transistor. A first-time user should understand what to do from the interface itself, without a tour or documentation. END-TO-END USER JOURNEYS Implement all of these flows through the real interface and persistent data layer: 1. The podcaster creates the show with artwork and category metadata, uploads the first episode with chapters, and previews the generated RSS feed. 2. The podcaster validates the feed, walks the submit-to-directories checklist for Apple and Spotify, and marks each directory submitted. 3. A listener’s app fetches the feed and downloads an episode, and the podcaster reads that day’s download counts on the dashboard. SCREENS AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE Build these as coherent responsive views. Each screen must specify its primary action, secondary actions, visible status, validation feedback, empty state, loading or pending state, success confirmation, and recoverable failure state. 1. Show settings: title, description, artwork upload with dimension validation, category, explicit flag, owner email, and the feed URL with a copy button. 2. Episodes: a list with publish state, duration, file size, download totals, and a new-episode upload with metadata and chapter editing. 3. Episode page: a public player, show notes, chapter list, publish date, and subscribe links to the major apps. 4. Dashboard: per-episode daily download charts, feed validation status, and the directories checklist with per-directory state. CORE CAPABILITIES 1. episode uploads to object storage with metadata 2. a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork 3. public episode pages with player and show notes 4. download counts per episode per day 5. a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation DETAILED BEHAVIOR AND BUSINESS RULES Treat these as server-enforced product requirements, not interface suggestions: 1. Generate the feed against the RSS and podcast-namespace specs and refuse to publish an episode that would make the feed invalid. 2. Assign each episode a permanent GUID and enclosure URL at publish time and never change either afterward. 3. Count a download once per file per client per day using coarse signals only, and never store listener identifiers. 4. Serve audio with byte-range support so podcast apps can stream and resume correctly. DATA MODEL AND LIFECYCLE Design a small relational schema centered on Show, Episode, Chapter, DownloadEvent. Before implementing it, document: 1. Each table’s purpose, primary key, ownership or tenant boundary, timestamps, status fields, and important attributes. 2. Foreign keys, uniqueness constraints, check constraints, indexes needed by the named screens, and transaction boundaries for multi-record changes. 3. The allowed lifecycle or state transitions, who may trigger each transition, which transitions are terminal or reversible, and what audit history must remain immutable. 4. Archive, retention, and deletion behavior, including what happens to dependent records and external files. 5. Idempotency strategy for submissions, jobs, imports, notifications, webhooks, or retries where applicable. Use migrations rather than ad-hoc schema creation. Store time instants consistently and retain named timezone context whenever local schedules or dates matter. Never rely on a counter, disabled button, or client-side check to preserve a business invariant. USERS, AUTHENTICATION, AND PERMISSIONS Implement only the roles required by the stated audience. Make the ownership and visibility model explicit before coding. Enforce authorization in every server-side query and mutation, including search, exports, attachments, live updates, and guessed URLs—not merely by hiding controls. Use secure session defaults, protect state-changing requests, and provide an understandable signed-out, expired-session, and forbidden state. Seed distinct users when multiple roles are required so permissions can be demonstrated and tested. INTERACTION AND VISUAL DIRECTION The product should feel fast, calm, focused, and credible rather than like a generic admin template. Use a clear visual hierarchy, restrained color, readable typography, generous hit targets, and consistent placement for primary actions. Start with server-rendered HTML and progressively enhance only the interactions that benefit from it. The core workflow must remain understandable if enhancement fails. Start with server-rendered Blade views and ordinary forms. Use Livewire for focused server-driven interactions and Alpine.js only for small local interface state. The core workflow must remain understandable without relying on a client-side application shell. Design mobile layouts intentionally instead of simply stacking desktop panels. Support keyboard navigation, visible focus, semantic landmarks, explicit labels, useful page titles, reduced-motion preferences, and screen-reader announcements for asynchronous results. Never use color alone to communicate state. Destructive actions require clear scope and confirmation; safe repeated actions should be idempotent. TECHNICAL DIRECTION Build this version with Laravel, PHP, Blade, Livewire, and Alpine.js. Use controllers and Blade forms for durable navigation, Livewire for focused interactions, Form Requests for validation, Policies and Gates for authorization, and small application actions or services for domain transitions. Use Eloquent with migrations, database constraints, and transactions; Laravel Storage for private S3-compatible files; queued Jobs for retryable work; the Scheduler for recurring work; and Notifications or Mail for email. Keep domain rules in testable server-side modules instead of route handlers or UI components. Separate persistence, external providers, and background work behind small interfaces without building a framework. Prefer ordinary HTML forms and URLs for durable navigation; use optimistic interaction only when failure can be reconciled clearly. The product brief currently identifies Astro, Workers, R2 as capability context. Preserve any required native, browser-only, edge, storage, real-time, or background-processing capability through a narrow adapter appropriate to the selected framework. If the core workflow genuinely requires native or browser APIs, keep that runtime as the primary execution surface rather than simulating inaccessible capabilities or inventing an unnecessary web surface. Integrate with R2 object storage and feed validator services. For every integration: - List required environment variables in an .env.example without real secrets. - Add a small adapter with timeouts, normalized errors, and a deterministic local fake or development path. - Verify inbound signatures and deduplicate provider events where supported. - Keep credentials server-side, encrypt long-lived provider tokens at rest, and redact secrets and sensitive payloads from logs. - Define retry, backoff, and idempotency behavior for any side effect that can be repeated. SECURITY AND PRIVACY Never break the published feed: keep episode GUIDs stable forever, keep enclosure URLs permanent, and validate against the spec before every publish. Validate, normalize, and length-limit all untrusted input on the server. Escape rendered content by default, sanitize any intentionally accepted markup, rate-limit public or abuse-prone actions, and use private object storage plus short-lived authorized URLs for sensitive files. Collect the minimum personal data necessary for the named workflow. Document retention and deletion behavior. Add specific protections for the riskier surfaces in this app, such as uploads, redirects, outbound requests, email delivery, OAuth, webhooks, CSV import or export, and real-time connections. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIOS Automate these app-specific scenarios at the most appropriate level: 1. Editing an episode’s title updates the feed without changing its GUID, so subscribed apps don’t re-download or duplicate the episode. 2. An artwork file below the directory minimum dimensions is rejected at upload with the exact requirement instead of failing at submission time. 3. Given a feed fetch from a podcast app, the response validates cleanly and includes chapters and artwork metadata for the latest episode. TESTING Add focused unit tests for state transitions, authorization predicates, normalization, date or money calculations, and other risky domain rules. Add integration tests for persistence constraints and each external adapter’s success, timeout, retry, and rejection paths. Add at least one browser-level test for every end-to-end journey above, including one small-screen viewport. Tests must use isolated data and run through a documented single command. OPERATIONS AND FAILURE RECOVERY Add structured server logs with request, job, or event correlation IDs but no secrets or unnecessarily sensitive data. Make failures actionable in both the interface and logs. Background work must expose pending, succeeded, failed, and retrying states where relevant; do not silently swallow errors. Include safe database migration and rollback guidance, seed data, backup and restore notes, external-data cleanup behavior, and a basic health or diagnostic path appropriate to the stack. DELIVERABLES Ship the working application, migrations, representative seed data, tests, .env.example, and a concise README. The README must cover prerequisites, local setup, environment variables, migrations, seed and test commands, deployment, integration setup, backup and restore, security decisions, and known limitations. Seed data should exercise the happy path plus at least one empty, failed, overdue, expired, archived, or permission-restricted state relevant to the product. DEFINITION OF DONE The app is complete when a fresh developer can follow the README, create and migrate the database, run the app, sign in as each relevant role, complete every named journey using real persisted data, refresh without losing state, recover from common failures, and use the core interface on phone and desktop. All acceptance scenarios pass, permission boundaries are covered by tests, and no core screen is left as a placeholder. NON-GOALS Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
You are building a production-ready software product named “Podshed”, a deliberately focused alternative to Transistor. Build a complete, usable vertical slice—not a landing page, static mockup, or disconnected collection of components. WORKING AGREEMENT Before writing implementation code, produce a short technical plan that names the routes or pages, server actions or endpoints, data tables, important state transitions, authorization boundaries, background jobs, and external adapters. Resolve contradictions in favor of the narrow audience and non-goals below. Prefer a small, legible architecture over speculative abstraction, but do not omit persistence, validation, error handling, or tests. PRODUCT BRIEF Primary user: one podcaster publishing a single show. Primary outcome: host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. Product principle: optimize the exact workflow below instead of copying the full breadth of Transistor. A first-time user should understand what to do from the interface itself, without a tour or documentation. END-TO-END USER JOURNEYS Implement all of these flows through the real interface and persistent data layer: 1. The podcaster creates the show with artwork and category metadata, uploads the first episode with chapters, and previews the generated RSS feed. 2. The podcaster validates the feed, walks the submit-to-directories checklist for Apple and Spotify, and marks each directory submitted. 3. A listener’s app fetches the feed and downloads an episode, and the podcaster reads that day’s download counts on the dashboard. SCREENS AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE Build these as coherent responsive views. Each screen must specify its primary action, secondary actions, visible status, validation feedback, empty state, loading or pending state, success confirmation, and recoverable failure state. 1. Show settings: title, description, artwork upload with dimension validation, category, explicit flag, owner email, and the feed URL with a copy button. 2. Episodes: a list with publish state, duration, file size, download totals, and a new-episode upload with metadata and chapter editing. 3. Episode page: a public player, show notes, chapter list, publish date, and subscribe links to the major apps. 4. Dashboard: per-episode daily download charts, feed validation status, and the directories checklist with per-directory state. CORE CAPABILITIES 1. episode uploads to object storage with metadata 2. a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork 3. public episode pages with player and show notes 4. download counts per episode per day 5. a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation DETAILED BEHAVIOR AND BUSINESS RULES Treat these as server-enforced product requirements, not interface suggestions: 1. Generate the feed against the RSS and podcast-namespace specs and refuse to publish an episode that would make the feed invalid. 2. Assign each episode a permanent GUID and enclosure URL at publish time and never change either afterward. 3. Count a download once per file per client per day using coarse signals only, and never store listener identifiers. 4. Serve audio with byte-range support so podcast apps can stream and resume correctly. DATA MODEL AND LIFECYCLE Design a small relational schema centered on Show, Episode, Chapter, DownloadEvent. Before implementing it, document: 1. Each table’s purpose, primary key, ownership or tenant boundary, timestamps, status fields, and important attributes. 2. Foreign keys, uniqueness constraints, check constraints, indexes needed by the named screens, and transaction boundaries for multi-record changes. 3. The allowed lifecycle or state transitions, who may trigger each transition, which transitions are terminal or reversible, and what audit history must remain immutable. 4. Archive, retention, and deletion behavior, including what happens to dependent records and external files. 5. Idempotency strategy for submissions, jobs, imports, notifications, webhooks, or retries where applicable. Use migrations rather than ad-hoc schema creation. Store time instants consistently and retain named timezone context whenever local schedules or dates matter. Never rely on a counter, disabled button, or client-side check to preserve a business invariant. USERS, AUTHENTICATION, AND PERMISSIONS Implement only the roles required by the stated audience. Make the ownership and visibility model explicit before coding. Enforce authorization in every server-side query and mutation, including search, exports, attachments, live updates, and guessed URLs—not merely by hiding controls. Use secure session defaults, protect state-changing requests, and provide an understandable signed-out, expired-session, and forbidden state. Seed distinct users when multiple roles are required so permissions can be demonstrated and tested. INTERACTION AND VISUAL DIRECTION The product should feel fast, calm, focused, and credible rather than like a generic admin template. Use a clear visual hierarchy, restrained color, readable typography, generous hit targets, and consistent placement for primary actions. Start with server-rendered HTML and progressively enhance only the interactions that benefit from it. The core workflow must remain understandable if enhancement fails. Start with server-rendered Rails views and ordinary forms. Use Turbo for navigation, submissions, and server-driven updates, then Stimulus only for small browser-side behavior. Do not turn the product into a client-side SPA, and keep the core workflow usable when enhancement fails. Design mobile layouts intentionally instead of simply stacking desktop panels. Support keyboard navigation, visible focus, semantic landmarks, explicit labels, useful page titles, reduced-motion preferences, and screen-reader announcements for asynchronous results. Never use color alone to communicate state. Destructive actions require clear scope and confirmation; safe repeated actions should be idempotent. TECHNICAL DIRECTION Build this version with Ruby on Rails and Hotwire: Turbo for navigation, form submissions, and server-driven updates, and Stimulus for small browser-side behavior. Use RESTful controllers with strong parameters and explicit authorization, with domain transitions in testable models or small application services. Use Active Record migrations plus database-level constraints and transactions; Active Storage with an S3-compatible service for private files; Active Job with a durable queue backend for retryable work; Action Mailer for email; and Action Cable only when live updates are required. Keep domain rules in testable server-side modules instead of route handlers or UI components. Separate persistence, external providers, and background work behind small interfaces without building a framework. Prefer ordinary HTML forms and URLs for durable navigation; use optimistic interaction only when failure can be reconciled clearly. The product brief currently identifies Astro, Workers, R2 as capability context. Preserve any required native, browser-only, edge, storage, real-time, or background-processing capability through a narrow adapter appropriate to the selected framework. If the core workflow genuinely requires native or browser APIs, keep that runtime as the primary execution surface rather than simulating inaccessible capabilities or inventing an unnecessary web surface. Integrate with R2 object storage and feed validator services. For every integration: - List required environment variables in an .env.example without real secrets. - Add a small adapter with timeouts, normalized errors, and a deterministic local fake or development path. - Verify inbound signatures and deduplicate provider events where supported. - Keep credentials server-side, encrypt long-lived provider tokens at rest, and redact secrets and sensitive payloads from logs. - Define retry, backoff, and idempotency behavior for any side effect that can be repeated. SECURITY AND PRIVACY Never break the published feed: keep episode GUIDs stable forever, keep enclosure URLs permanent, and validate against the spec before every publish. Validate, normalize, and length-limit all untrusted input on the server. Escape rendered content by default, sanitize any intentionally accepted markup, rate-limit public or abuse-prone actions, and use private object storage plus short-lived authorized URLs for sensitive files. Collect the minimum personal data necessary for the named workflow. Document retention and deletion behavior. Add specific protections for the riskier surfaces in this app, such as uploads, redirects, outbound requests, email delivery, OAuth, webhooks, CSV import or export, and real-time connections. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIOS Automate these app-specific scenarios at the most appropriate level: 1. Editing an episode’s title updates the feed without changing its GUID, so subscribed apps don’t re-download or duplicate the episode. 2. An artwork file below the directory minimum dimensions is rejected at upload with the exact requirement instead of failing at submission time. 3. Given a feed fetch from a podcast app, the response validates cleanly and includes chapters and artwork metadata for the latest episode. TESTING Add focused unit tests for state transitions, authorization predicates, normalization, date or money calculations, and other risky domain rules. Add integration tests for persistence constraints and each external adapter’s success, timeout, retry, and rejection paths. Add at least one browser-level test for every end-to-end journey above, including one small-screen viewport. Tests must use isolated data and run through a documented single command. OPERATIONS AND FAILURE RECOVERY Add structured server logs with request, job, or event correlation IDs but no secrets or unnecessarily sensitive data. Make failures actionable in both the interface and logs. Background work must expose pending, succeeded, failed, and retrying states where relevant; do not silently swallow errors. Include safe database migration and rollback guidance, seed data, backup and restore notes, external-data cleanup behavior, and a basic health or diagnostic path appropriate to the stack. DELIVERABLES Ship the working application, migrations, representative seed data, tests, .env.example, and a concise README. The README must cover prerequisites, local setup, environment variables, migrations, seed and test commands, deployment, integration setup, backup and restore, security decisions, and known limitations. Seed data should exercise the happy path plus at least one empty, failed, overdue, expired, archived, or permission-restricted state relevant to the product. DEFINITION OF DONE The app is complete when a fresh developer can follow the README, create and migrate the database, run the app, sign in as each relevant role, complete every named journey using real persisted data, refresh without losing state, recover from common failures, and use the core interface on phone and desktop. All acceptance scenarios pass, permission boundaries are covered by tests, and no core screen is left as a placeholder. NON-GOALS Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
Build just one piece
Not ready to replace all of Transistor? Fine. These are the peculiar sub-problems hiding inside it — the parts that are actually interesting to build. Each one is a standalone prompt, scoped to an evening, no strings attached to the full build.
The RSS feed that refuses to publish itself brokenValidate against the spec before every publish, because apps never forget a bad feed.
Build a validating RSS generator for a podcast feed. The feed is the product: Apple, Spotify, and every app consume the same XML, and a malformed feed silently breaks subscribers. Generate RSS 2.0 with the iTunes podcast namespace, show-level artwork, category, explicit flag, owner email, and per-episode title, description, enclosure URL with byte length and MIME type, duration, and publication date in RFC 822 format. Then guard it: before any publish, run the generated feed through a validation pass, well-formed XML, required elements present, enclosure lengths matching actual file sizes, dates parseable, and refuse to publish an episode that would make the feed invalid, with a specific error naming the offending field. Escape and CDATA-wrap show notes so a stray ampersand in an episode title can't corrupt the document. Validate artwork dimensions at upload time against directory minimums, not at submission time. Done when: the feed passes a standard validator after every publish, an invalid episode is rejected with the exact reason, and special characters in metadata never break the XML.
The GUID you set once and defend foreverChange it and every subscriber re-downloads your back catalog.
Build episode identity management for a podcast feed. Podcast apps identify episodes by GUID. Change one and every subscriber's app treats it as a brand-new episode, re-downloading it and duplicating it in their list. So: assign each episode a permanent GUID at publish time, independent of title, slug, or file URL, and make it structurally immutable, no update path in the code, no editable field in the admin. Same discipline for enclosure URLs: apps cache and resume against them, so the audio URL assigned at publish is permanent. If the underlying storage must move, the old URL redirects rather than 404s. Meanwhile, everything else stays freely editable: fixing a typo in a title or rewriting show notes updates the feed without touching GUID or enclosure, and subscribed apps see the correction without a duplicate. Done when: editing every editable field leaves GUID and enclosure URL byte-identical in the feed, a republished feed never causes re-downloads, and the admin UI physically cannot change either value after publish.
The download counter that survives 40 range requestsOne listener streaming an episode is not forty downloads.
Build honest download counting for podcast audio. Podcast apps fetch audio in HTTP byte-range chunks, one listener streaming an episode can hit the server dozens of times, and naive request counting inflates numbers by an order of magnitude. Count a download once per file per client per day: bucket by UTC day, derive a coarse client key by hashing user agent plus truncated IP in memory, count the first qualifying request per bucket, and never store the raw identifiers, only the day's counters survive. Qualify requests before counting: ignore HEAD requests, ignore tiny probe ranges that fetch only the first kilobytes to sniff metadata, and count either a range covering meaningful content or the first substantial GET. Filter known bots and feed crawlers by user agent. Serve the audio itself with correct byte-range support, 206 responses with accurate Content-Range, so apps can stream and resume. Done when: one app streaming an episode in 40 chunks registers one download, metadata probes register zero, and stored data contains counters only, no listener identifiers.
The chapter editor that speaks both chapter dialectsTimestamps in, podcast-namespace JSON and embedded markers out.
Build chapter support for podcast episodes. Chapters let listeners skip to the good part, and there are two dialects worth emitting: a JSON chapters file per the podcast-namespace spec, referenced from the feed with the proper podcast colon chapters tag, and chapter data on the public episode page player. Build an editor where the podcaster adds chapters as timestamp plus title, with optional URL per chapter, typing times as hh:mm:ss or mm:ss and storing seconds. Enforce sanity: chapters sorted by start time, no chapter beyond the episode's duration, no two chapters at the identical timestamp, and a warning (not an error) when the first chapter doesn't start at zero. Generate the JSON file at publish time next to the audio, and update it when chapters are edited, without touching the episode's GUID or enclosure URL. On the episode page, render a clickable chapter list that seeks the player. Done when: the emitted JSON validates against the podcast-namespace chapters format, out-of-range or overlapping timestamps are caught at edit time, and clicking a chapter seeks the web player to the exact second.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build your own Transistor?
A basic version — episode uploads, valid rss feed, episode pages — takes about 8 hours. Roughly 3 days gets you a solid v1 with scheduled publishing, private feeds, transcripts, richer analytics. Matching everything Transistor really does (iab analytics, dynamic ads, multiple shows, site builder) is closer to 1 month+, which is exactly why you should scope down instead.
How much does Transistor cost if I keep subscribing?
Transistor runs $19–$99 per month on public paid plans, which is $228–$1188 per year. A focused self-built replacement costs your build time plus close-to-zero hosting.
What stack should I use to build a Transistor alternative?
The build prompt on this page ships in four flavors: the AHA stack (Astro, HTMX, Alpine.js), Next.js, Laravel, and Ruby on Rails. The capability context for this product is Astro, Workers, R2. Pick the stack you already know — the scope matters more than the framework.
What features does a minimal Transistor replacement need?
A useful v1 needs: episode uploads to object storage with metadata; a valid rss feed with chapters and artwork; public episode pages with player and show notes; download counts per episode per day; a submit-to-directories checklist with feed validation. Everything else is scope creep until you personally miss it.
What should I deliberately not build?
Do not build IAB-certified analytics, dynamic ad insertion, private subscriber billing, multiple shows, or a website builder in v1.
Does this build also replace Buzzsprout and Captivate?
Yes. Transistor, Buzzsprout and Captivate all solve the same core job — host episode files yourself and publish a spec-correct RSS feed every directory accepts. The scoped v1 on this page covers what most people use any of them for, so one focused build replaces whichever you currently pay for.