Open-source intelligence platform for viewing global conflicts on an interactive map. Think Palantir, but open.

OpenIntel plots political violence and protest events on a dark interactive globe. Filter by time range, event type, region, or country. Click any dot to see what happened — who was involved, how many casualties, and the original sources. Built on real conflict data from ACLED.

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project) is a nonprofit that collects and maps political violence and protest events worldwide in real-time. They employ researchers who read local news, NGO reports, and UN sources across every country, then code each event into a structured row: what happened, who was involved, where, when, and how many people died.

Their database covers 6 event types going back to 1997 for some regions:

ACLED data is not fully free. Event-level data (individual rows with coordinates) requires a paid tier:

Registering with an institutional email (university, org, company) may qualify you for Research access. Apply at developer.acleddata.com.

Alternative free sources:

• UCDP (Uppsala Conflict Data Program) — fully free and open API, covers armed conflict (not protests)
• ACLED on HDX — free but aggregated only (no coordinates)

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm
• Docker (for PostGIS)
• Python 3.11+ (for data pipeline)

pnpm install

cp .env.example .env.local

Edit .env.local and add:

• NEXT_PUBLIC_PROTOMAPS_KEY — free key from protomaps.com
• ACLED_EMAIL and ACLED_KEY — if you have Research+ tier access

docker compose up -d

This starts PostGIS on port 5433 and auto-runs SQL migrations.

With ACLED API credentials:

cd pipeline
pip install -e .
python -m src.ingest --days 30       # Recent data
python -m src.backfill --start 2020-01-01  # Historical backfill

Without credentials: The app works with the map visible, but no event data will be plotted until data is loaded into the database.

pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000 (or the port shown in terminal).

openintel/
├── src/                          # Next.js app
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── page.tsx              # Main page (map + sidebar + detail panel)
│   │   └── api/                  # 8 API routes (events, geojson, filters, search, stats)
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── map/                  # MapContainer, DeckOverlay, EventPopup
│   │   ├── sidebar/              # Filters (time, event type, region, country, search)
│   │   ├── detail/               # DetailPanel, EventMeta, SourceList, FatalityBadge
│   │   └── layout/               # Header, StatsBar
│   ├── lib/
│   │   ├── db.ts                 # PostgreSQL connection pool
│   │   ├── queries/              # SQL query builders
│   │   └── map/                  # Colors, layers, styles, constants
│   ├── stores/                   # Zustand stores (filters, map, UI)
│   └── hooks/                    # SWR data fetching hooks
├── pipeline/                     # Python data pipeline
│   ├── src/                      # ACLED client, transform, DB upsert, ingest
│   ├── sql/                      # Database migrations (auto-run by Docker)
│   └── scripts/                  # Shell scripts for daily/backfill runs
└── docker-compose.yml            # PostGIS for local dev

All routes accept filter params: dateStart, dateEnd, eventTypes, countries, regions, search.

MIT