DC254：肯尼亚数字基础设施教育研究平台，收录 109 篇文章与东非数据中心目录

Inside Kenya's Digital Infrastructure.

DC254 is an independent Kenyan educational and research platform explaining the physical infrastructure behind Kenya's digital economy — data centres, connectivity, power, AI, and the systems that make the digital world work.

Live at data-centers-254.vercel.app.

What It Does

• DC Directory — Verified directory of Kenya's data centre facilities plus the first East Africa regional records (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda), from a versioned, quarterly-snapshotted dataset (src/data/directory/)
• 109 Articles — Researched explainers across 8 clusters: Beginner, Kenya, Internet, Energy, AI, Careers, Infrastructure, Policy
• Market Trackers — Capacity pipeline (/tracker), subsea cables (/tracker/cables), power tariffs (/tracker/power) and licensing (/tracker/licensing), every row sourced and dated
• State of the Market — Quarterly report with a frozen dataset snapshot and a free CC BY dataset bundle (/research/state-of-the-market-2026-q3)
• Search — Unified search across articles and facilities
• Newsletter — DC254 Brief subscriber capture (email → Resend Contacts)
• Contact Form — Email delivery via Resend
• SEO — Dynamic sitemap, robots.txt, RSS feed (/feed.xml), llms.txt, JSON-LD structured data (Organization + WebSite + Article + FAQPage + BreadcrumbList), Open Graph

Tech Stack

There is no database — articles are markdown files, the directory dataset is a versioned JSON file (src/data/directory/current.json, with frozen quarterly snapshots under snapshots/ and quarterly CSV bundles in public/datasets/), and newsletter subscribers are stored as contacts in Resend. Everything is statically rendered where possible, so it deploys cleanly to serverless.

Project Structure

src/
├── app/                    # Next.js App Router pages
│   ├── page.tsx             # Homepage (10 narrative sections)
│   ├── articles/[slug]/     # Individual article pages
│   ├── directory/           # DC Directory (facilities, operators, connectivity)
│   ├── infrastructure/      # Infrastructure hub + map
│   ├── beginners|kenya|internet|energy|ai|careers/  # Topic clusters
│   ├── glossary/            # Infrastructure glossary
│   ├── search/              # Unified search
│   ├── about/               # About page
│   ├── contact/             # Contact page
│   ├── feed.xml/            # RSS 2.0 feed (generated from articles)
│   ├── sitemap.ts           # Dynamic sitemap
│   ├── robots.ts            # robots.txt
│   └── api/                 # API routes
│       ├── articles/        # Article queries (cluster, latest)
│       ├── directory/       # Facility directory API (filter/sort)
│       ├── search/          # Unified search API
│       ├── subscribe/       # Newsletter subscription (→ Resend Contacts)
│       └── contact/         # Contact form (→ Resend email)
├── components/
│   ├── sections/            # Homepage sections (hero, what-is-dc, etc.)
│   ├── article-cluster-page.tsx  # Cluster listing pages
│   ├── navbar.tsx           # Navigation with mobile sidebar
│   ├── footer.tsx           # Site footer
│   └── brand-logo.tsx       # DC254 logo (3 variants)
├── lib/
│   ├── articles.ts          # Markdown article loader (gray-matter)
│   ├── directory-data.ts    # Typed loader over the versioned directory JSON
│   ├── market-trackers.ts   # Subsea cables, power tariffs, licensing trackers
│   ├── glossary-data.ts     # Glossary terms
│   └── site.ts              # Canonical site URL utility
├── data/
│   └── directory/           # Versioned dataset source of truth
│       ├── current.json     #   live dataset (31 facilities, 18 operators)
│       └── snapshots/       #   frozen quarterly snapshots (2026-Q3.json)
content/
└── articles/                # 109 markdown articles with YAML frontmatter

Newsletter & Contact (Resend)

Both /api/subscribe and /api/contact use Resend — no database required.

Newsletter subscribers appear in the Resend dashboard under Contacts (optionally grouped in your Segment). Contact form submissions are emailed to the address configured in src/app/api/contact/route.ts.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

Setup

# 1. Install dependencies
npm install

# 2. Copy environment variables and add your Resend API key
cp .env.example .env

# 3. Start development server
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Available Scripts

CI

GitHub Actions workflow lives at .github/workflows/ci.yml (required location for Actions to pick it up). It runs on every push/PR to main:

1. Content validation — scripts/article_validator.py (frontmatter, internal links, images, FAQ coverage, word depth)
2. Lint + build — npm ci, npm run lint, npm run build
3. Dependency audit — npm audit (report-only)

Deploying to Vercel

1. Import the repository into Vercel
2. Add RESEND_API_KEY (plus optional RESEND_SEGMENT_ID and NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL) in Project → Settings → Environment Variables
3. Deploy — no database or persistent filesystem needed

Design Decisions

• "Don't design a website. Design a way of seeing." — The homepage is an editorial narrative, not a dashboard.
• Fact sourcing — Every statistic is labeled (FACT / REPORTED / ESTIMATE / DC254 DATABASE) with source attribution.
• Dark theme — Cyan and neon accents on deep black, inspired by data centre server rooms.
• No authentication — DC254 is a read-only publication. Newsletter captures emails; no user accounts.

License

All rights reserved. Content and data are the intellectual property of Data Centre 254.