Pulse

Short-form institutional video — record and edit on-device, upload to your own server.

Pulse is a React Native (Expo) app for capturing institutional knowledge as short-form video. Drafts live on-device; finalized videos upload over the resumable TUS protocol to a Fastify server running the @mieweb/pulsevault plugin — so organizations keep content on their own infrastructure and own auth, ownership, and quota decisions.

Typical uses: training documentation, process walkthroughs, knowledge transfer before staff changes, and compliance material.

Features

Recording & editing

• Segmented recording — record multiple clips that combine into one seamless video
• Duration presets — 15s / 30s / 1m / 3m
• Hardware-accelerated concatenation — AVFoundation on iOS, Media3 on Android
• Drag-and-drop reordering with live drop indicators
• Per-segment trim (in/out points) with undo/redo persisted across sessions

Camera

• Flash, camera flip, zoom
• Cross-platform video stabilization (see VIDEO_STABILIZATION.md)
• Import clips from the photo library and mix with new recordings

Drafts & upload

• Auto-saved drafts — pick up work across sessions
• Per-draft upload destinations — choose which PulseVault server a given draft targets
• Resumable uploads — TUS chunking survives flaky networks and backgrounded apps
• Draft transfer — export/import via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, or iOS device migration (see DRAFT_TRANSFER.md)
• Deep links — pulsecam:// URL scheme for direct app entry from external tools

Backend: @mieweb/pulsevault

Pulse is a client for the @mieweb/pulsevault Fastify plugin. Drop it into your own Fastify app to get TUS-compatible video ingestion with a pluggable storage adapter — @mieweb/artipod-backed local filesystem ships by default, or implement PulseVaultStorage for a custom backend.

The plugin mounts three routes under a configurable prefix:

Method	Path	Description
POST	/upload	Create a TUS upload session
PATCH	/upload/:id	Stream chunks
GET	/:videoid	Stream or redirect to the uploaded video

POST /reserve is not part of the plugin — your server implements it to attach auth, DB records, and quotas, and returns a videoid the client then streams to. Pulse calls /reserve before every upload.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/mieweb/pulse.git
cd pulse
npm install

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Expo CLI
• Xcode (iOS)
• Android Studio (Android)

Running

# Metro / Expo
npx expo start

# iOS
npx expo prebuild
cd ios && pod install && open pulse.xcworkspace
# then build from Xcode

# Android
npx expo run:android

Required permissions: Camera, Microphone, Storage.

Configuration

Recording settings

const defaultSettings = {
  maxIndividualDuration: 60, // max duration per segment (s)
  holdDelay: 500, // ms before hold-to-record engages
  progressUpdateInterval: 100, // progress tick (ms)
};

Time options

const timeOptions = [
  { label: "15s", value: 15 },
  { label: "30s", value: 30 },
  { label: "1m", value: 60 },
  { label: "3m", value: 180 },
];

Video concatenation

interface RecordingSegment {
  id: string;
  duration: number;
  uri: string;
  inMs?: number; // optional start trim
  outMs?: number; // optional end trim
}

const outputUri = await VideoConcatModule.export(segments);

Video stabilization

• iOS: off, standard, cinematic, cinematicExtended, auto
• Android: on/off (iOS-specific modes map to "on")
• Control: tap to cycle, long-press for picker

See VIDEO_STABILIZATION.md for details.

Development

Project structure

pulse/
├── app/          # Expo Router screens
├── components/   # Reusable UI
├── modules/      # Native modules (video-concat, etc.)
├── hooks/        # Custom React hooks
├── utils/        # Upload, draft storage, destinations
└── constants/    # App configuration

Commands

npm run lint
npx tsc --noEmit
eas build --platform ios --profile production
eas build --platform android --profile production

CodeQL

Automated CodeQL analysis runs against the iOS build. Workflow: .github/workflows/codeql.yml. If you rename the Xcode workspace or scheme, update the -workspace / -scheme parameters there. The workflow builds against the iPhone Simulator SDK with code signing disabled and Metro bundling skipped.

Contributing

1. Fork and branch: git checkout -b feature/your-change
2. Make changes and test on both iOS and Android
3. git commit -m 'feat: your change'
4. Push and open a PR

Research context

Pulse grew out of research into institutional knowledge management and video-based documentation — measuring how short-form video affects ticket resolution, knowledge adoption, and collaboration compared to traditional documentation. Partnerships welcome.

Acknowledgments

• Primary developer: Priyam More
• Institutional partner: Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc.
• Research advisor: Doug Horner

Built on React Native, Expo, native AVFoundation and Media3, and the @mieweb/pulsevault Fastify plugin.

License

MIT