kiko

README

kiko — Privacy-first web analytics collector in Go

High-performance, cookie-free, batteries-included server-side analytics.

Repo: github.com/hrodrig/kiko · Releases: Releases

Early development: kiko is in initial active development. Expect breaking changes, incomplete features, and data loss between releases. Do not use in production.

Privacy-first web analytics collector in Go. A ~500-byte tracking script sends inbound page views; the server hashes visitors without cookies, buffers hits in memory, and flushes sorted batch inserts plus hourly aggregations to SQLite (default), PostgreSQL, or MySQL.

This repo is kiko — collection only. kui (kiko + ui) is the analytics user interface in a separate repo: charts, tables, and reports over kiko's query API. kui is not built yet; the hero window on the right is where kui will sit.

Self-hosted deployment (Docker Compose, Helm, Kubernetes manifests): kiko-selfhosted — production paths and example stacks live there; this repo ships the application binary, packages, and container image only (same split as pgwd / pgwd-selfhosted).

GitHub repo traffic (history beyond 14 days): sibling tool gghstats — live stats for kiko (clone badge above).

Documentation: SPECIFICATIONS.md (architecture, schema, API), ROADMAP.md (phases), configs/kiko.yml.sample, and man kiko (when packaged).

Brand assets: hero banner assets/kiko-hero-full.png (compact assets/kiko-hero.png + source assets/kiko-hero.svg); favicons under assets/favicons/ (favicon.svg + PNG/ICO + manifest.json for future kui). The collector API does not serve these yet.

Table of contents

• Quick start
• Why kiko
• Design principles
• How it works
• Configuration
• Build & releases
• Tracking snippet
• API
  • Hit payload
• Quality gates
• Related
• Get involved
• Star History
• License

---

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/hrodrig/kiko
cd kiko
make build
./kiko serve

Add to your site HTML (replace the host with your public kiko URL):

<script defer src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/kiko.js"></script>

Custom config:

kiko serve -c /etc/kiko/kiko.yml

Probes for Kubernetes: GET /api/v1/healthz (liveness), GET /api/v1/readyz (readiness — DB + buffer). Deployment paths (Compose, Helm, MicroK8s): kiko-selfhosted.

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Why kiko

• No cookies — SHA-256 visitor hash with daily salt. No GDPR banner needed.
• Batteries included — ~500B tracking script, in-memory buffer, batch flush, migrations, and health probes in one static binary.
• No Node in production — tracking script is ~500 bytes JS. Server is a static Go binary.
• Passes audits — govulncheck, grype, gocyclo, cover. Same standard as sibling projects.
• Single binary — Go, CGO disabled, distroless. ~2.5MB compiled.
• Multi-database — SQLite zero-config default; Postgres and MySQL via config.

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Design principles

The hero diagram is the product thesis in one glance: a Go collector built to do one job — gather web analytics on infrastructure you control, without turning visitors into tracking targets.

Light and fast. A ~500-byte tracking script feeds a compact Go binary tuned for throughput. Inbound hits are validated and hashed quickly; there is no heavyweight client SDK and no JavaScript runtime on the server — just a small static binary that chews through traffic like focused industrial gear.

Privacy by default. The whole pipeline sits inside a cookie-free boundary. Visitors become ephemeral daily hashes, not persistent profiles; IP addresses stay in memory and never reach disk. Measurement without surveillance — analytics you own, not cross-site fingerprinting.

Buffer, then batch. Hits accumulate in a visible in-memory buffer first. On a fixed interval they are sorted, aggregated, and flushed as organized batch inserts plus hourly rollups — the ordered blocks in the diagram. Hot path stays simple; database work stays predictable.

Your database, your choice. One collector, three backends: SQLite (zero-config default), PostgreSQL, or MySQL. Same schema and flush logic — pick the engine that fits your stack without forking the application.

That focus — fast ingestion, respectful privacy, smart batching, portable storage — is what kiko is for: a robust Go backend dedicated to collecting analytics sovereignly and respectfully. kui (kiko + ui) handles the UI in a separate project; kiko does not ship charts or admin screens.

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How it works

The hero diagram maps this pipeline end to end: inbound raw data from the browser, buffered hits in the Go collector, sorted and aggregated batch writes, then SQLite / PostgreSQL / MySQL — read by kui (the UI, separate repo, future).

flowchart LR
    subgraph browser["Browser"]
        JS["kiko.js (~500B)"]
    end

    subgraph kiko["kiko (Go binary)"]
        direction TB
        IN["POST /hit · GET /hit.gif"]
        RL["rate limit (per IP)"]
        HASH["visitor_hash<br/>SHA-256(ip + ua + daily salt)"]
        BUF["MemBuffer<br/>(mutex, cap 4k)"]
        FLUSH["flush loop<br/>every 10s"]
        INSERT["BatchInserter + aggregations"]

        IN --> RL --> HASH --> BUF --> FLUSH --> INSERT
    end

    JS --> IN
    INSERT --> DB[("SQLite / PostgreSQL / MySQL")]
    DASH["kui (UI, separate repo)"] -.-> DB

Each hit is validated, hashed, and appended to an in-memory buffer (mutex-protected; drops when full). Every 10s the buffer flushes to the database in batch: raw hits, normalized paths/referrers, and hourly counts. Rate limiting uses a per-IP token bucket (pattern from gghstats).

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Configuration

Config file: kiko.yml (see configs/kiko.yml.sample). All fields overridable via env vars with KIKO_ prefix.

listen: ":8080"
public_url: "https://analytics.yourdomain.com"
log_level: info

database:
  driver: sqlite          # sqlite | postgres | mysql
  path: ./data/kiko.db    # sqlite only

buffer:
  flush_interval: 10      # seconds between batch flushes
  capacity: 4096          # max hits in memory before drop

rate_limit:
  enabled: true
  requests_per_sec: 100
  burst: 200
  host_requests_per_sec: 50   # optional per-host ingest cap
  host_burst: 100

filter:
  trust_proxy: false          # use first public IP from X-Forwarded-For / X-Real-IP
  block_bots: true
  block_prefetch: true
  block_referrer_spam: true
  block_datacenter_ips: false
  ignore_ips: []              # never count these client IPs
  extra_datacenter_cidrs: []

allowed_hosts: []         # empty = accept all

visitor:
  salt: ""                # set in production (KIKO_VISITOR_SALT)

Env	Maps to
KIKO_LISTEN	listen
KIKO_PUBLIC_URL	public_url
KIKO_LOG_LEVEL	log_level
KIKO_DATABASE_DRIVER	database.driver
KIKO_DATABASE_PATH	database.path
KIKO_DATABASE_HOST	database.host
KIKO_DATABASE_PORT	database.port
KIKO_DATABASE_USER	database.user
KIKO_DATABASE_PASSWORD	database.password
KIKO_DATABASE_DBNAME	database.dbname
KIKO_DATABASE_SSLMODE	database.sslmode
KIKO_DATABASE_DSN	database.dsn (overrides all)
KIKO_BUFFER_FLUSH_INTERVAL	buffer.flush_interval
KIKO_BUFFER_CAPACITY	buffer.capacity
KIKO_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED	rate_limit.enabled
KIKO_RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS_PER_SEC	rate_limit.requests_per_sec
KIKO_RATE_LIMIT_BURST	rate_limit.burst
KIKO_RATE_LIMIT_HOST_REQUESTS_PER_SEC	rate_limit.host_requests_per_sec
KIKO_RATE_LIMIT_HOST_BURST	rate_limit.host_burst
KIKO_FILTER_TRUST_PROXY	filter.trust_proxy
KIKO_FILTER_BLOCK_BOTS	filter.block_bots
KIKO_FILTER_BLOCK_PREFETCH	filter.block_prefetch
KIKO_FILTER_BLOCK_REFERRER_SPAM	filter.block_referrer_spam
KIKO_FILTER_BLOCK_DATACENTER_IPS	filter.block_datacenter_ips
KIKO_ALLOWED_HOSTS	allowed_hosts (comma-separated)
KIKO_VISITOR_SALT	visitor.salt

Log levels

Level	Value	Description
trace	0	Diagnostic detail, most verbose
debug	1	Debugging information
info	2	General operational messages (default)
warn	3	Non-critical issues
error	4	Runtime errors
fatal	5	Critical failure, process exits
off	6	Nothing logged

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Build & releases

Development (this repo):

make build
sudo cp kiko /usr/local/bin/   # optional

Production deployment (Compose, Helm, Kubernetes, env layout): kiko-selfhosted — not this repo.

Published artifacts: GitHub Releases and ghcr.io/hrodrig/kiko (multi-arch). Formats below are built by CI/Goreleaser from this repo; runbooks live in kiko-selfhosted.

OS	Arch	Format
Linux	amd64, arm64	tar.gz, .deb, .rpm, Docker
macOS	amd64, arm64	tar.gz, Homebrew
Windows	amd64, arm64	zip
FreeBSD	amd64, arm64	tar.gz, port
OpenBSD	amd64, arm64	tar.gz, port

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Tracking snippet

The server embeds kiko.js (~500B). It sends POST /hit via navigator.sendBeacon() and falls back to a 1×1 GIF pixel (GET /hit.gif) when needed. Always responds with a transparent GIF — success and rejection look the same to the browser.

SPAs: pageviews fire on history.pushState / popstate (History API). For hash-based routers, load with ?hash=1 to also track hashchange.

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API

Endpoint	Method	Description
/kiko.js	GET	Tracking script (cached 24h)
/hit	POST	JSON tracking endpoint
/hit.gif	GET	Pixel fallback
/api/v1/healthz	GET	Liveness probe
/api/v1/readyz	GET	Readiness probe (DB + buffer)
/api/v1/version	GET	Build metadata — same fields as kiko version (public, no auth)
/api/v1/stats/summary	GET	Headline metrics (hits, uniques, top path)
/api/v1/stats/paths	GET	Top paths
/api/v1/stats/refs	GET	Top referrers
/api/v1/stats/timeline	GET	Time series (interval=hour|day)
/api/v1/stats/visitors	GET	Unique visitors
/api/v1/stats/channels	GET	Breakdown by channel
/api/v1/stats/browsers	GET	Breakdown by browser
/api/v1/stats/os	GET	Breakdown by OS
/api/v1/stats/utm	GET	Breakdown by utm_source

Stats API (for kui)

All stats endpoints accept:

Query	Required	Description
host	yes	Site hostname
since	no	Start (YYYY-MM-DD or RFC3339). Default: 30 days before until.
until	no	End (same formats). Default: now.
limit	no	Max rows for list endpoints (default 10, max 100).
interval	no	Timeline only: hour or day (default day).

Auth: set api.key / KIKO_API_KEY. Send X-API-Key: <key> or Authorization: Bearer <key>. Empty key = open (dev only; server logs a warning).

Example

curl -sS 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/stats/summary?host=gghstats.com&since=2026-01-01' \
  -H 'X-API-Key: your-secret'

Responses are JSON with Cache-Control: public, max-age=60.

Hit payload

The browser sends only the fields below. kiko enriches each hit server-side (visitor hash, browser/OS, traffic channel) before buffering — those are not part of the client JSON.

POST /hit

Headers

Header	Required	Notes
Content-Type	yes	application/json
User-Agent	recommended	Used for bot filtering, daily visitor hash, and browser/OS labels

JSON body

Field	Type	Required	Description
host	string	yes	Site hostname (e.g. gghstats.com). Must match allowed_hosts when configured.
path	string	no	Page path + query string. Default / if empty.
referrer	string	no	Full referrer URL or empty for direct traffic.
title	string	no	Document title (document.title).
width	number	no	Screen width in pixels (screen.width).

Example

{
  "host": "gghstats.com",
  "path": "/blog/my-post",
  "referrer": "https://dev.to/someone",
  "title": "My Post | GGHStats",
  "width": 1920
}

Try it

curl -sS -X POST 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/hit' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) Chrome/120.0.0.0' \
  -d '{"host":"localhost","path":"/demo","referrer":"https://google.com/search?q=kiko","title":"Demo","width":1920}' \
  -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{content_type}\n'

Expect 200 image/gif (43-byte transparent GIF). Invalid or rejected hits return the same GIF so browsers cannot distinguish success from drop.

Response headers (ingest debugging):

Header	When	Meaning
X-Kiko-Dropped: 1	rejected hit	Silent drop (bot, prefetch, spam referrer, datacenter IP, rate limit, …)
X-Debug-Request: true (request)	optional	Response body is JSON with client_ip, accepted, and reason instead of GIF

Use debug mode behind a reverse proxy to verify client IP forwarding without polluting stats — see kiko-selfhosted for Traefik/Ingress examples.

GET /hit.gif

Pixel fallback when sendBeacon is unavailable. Query params map to the same JSON fields:

Param	JSON field	Description
h	host	Site hostname
p	path	Page path
r	referrer	Referrer URL
t	title	Document title
w	width	Screen width (integer)

Example

GET /hit.gif?h=gghstats.com&p=%2Fblog%2Fmy-post&r=https%3A%2F%2Fdev.to%2Fsomeone&t=My%20Post&w=1920

Same User-Agent and client IP rules as POST /hit.

Server-side enrichment (not in client payload)

Stored field	Source
visitor_hash	SHA-256 of client IP + User-Agent + daily salt (IP never written to disk)
browser, os	Parsed from User-Agent (internal/ua/)
channel	Classified from referrer + host (direct, organic, social, email, referral) — internal/ref/
source	Display label for referrer (Google, Twitter/X, …)
utm_*	Parsed from path query (utm_source, …); stripped from stored path
referrer (stored)	Normalized URL (query/fragment stripped)

Full API reference: SPECIFICATIONS.md §4.

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Quality gates

Gate	Threshold	Enforced
gofmt -s	No diff	CI + release
go vet	0 warnings	CI + release
gocyclo	≤ 14	CI + release
govulncheck	0 vulnerabilities	CI + release
grype	0 high/critical	CI + release
go test -cover	≥ 80%	CI + release
CodeQL	Clean	CI

Local check: make release-check

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Related

Project	Role
kiko-selfhosted	Docker Compose, Helm, K8s manifests
kui	Analytics UI (kiko + ui) — charts and reports over kiko's API (planned)
gghstats	GitHub traffic stats
pgwd	PostgreSQL connection watchdog
kzero	Kubernetes pipeline CLI
groot	Kubernetes log collector

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Get involved

Found kiko useful? You can:

• Report bugs or suggest features — open an issue
• Contribute code — see CONTRIBUTING.md
• Star the repo — it helps others discover kiko

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Star History

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License

MIT — LICENSE

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