Novela

Novela is a self-hosted web application for managing and reading a personal digital library. It supports EPUB, PDF, and CBR/CBZ, with metadata editing, reading progress tracking, and Dropbox backups.

What Novela Provides

Library import and indexing for EPUB/PDF/CBR/CBZ
Home dashboard with continue reading and unread/read sections
Reader support for EPUB, PDF, and comics (CBR/CBZ)
Metadata editing (title, author, publisher, series, volume, tags, genres)
New review workflow with list/grid view, column toggles, and bulk actions
Reading analytics/statistics dashboard
Dropbox backup with:
- versioned snapshots
- object deduplication
- retention policy
- scheduled background runs

Tech Stack

FastAPI
Jinja2 templates + vanilla JavaScript
PostgreSQL 16
Docker / Docker Compose style deployment

Repository Layout

containers/novela/ - application code (routers, templates, static assets, migrations)
stack/ - deployment stack files and environment configuration
docs/ - technical status and changelog documentation
build-and-push.sh - helper script for container build/push

Quick Start (Development)

Configure environment values in stack/novela.env.
Start the stack using your preferred Docker workflow (Compose/Portainer stack).
Open the app and complete backup credential setup on /backup if needed.

Key Environment Variables

POSTGRES_DB
POSTGRES_USER
POSTGRES_PASSWORD
NOVELA_MASTER_KEY
CONFIG_DIR
LIBRARY_DIR (optional override)

Documentation

Technical status: docs/TECHNICAL.md
Develop changelog: docs/changelog-develop.md

Status

This repository is actively evolving. The develop documentation reflects implemented behavior in the current codebase.

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