Add readme

README.md

@@ -7,3 +7,103 @@ yarn run dev
 ```
 
 https://68e894d726.d.voltageapp.io/tipjar/1
+
+## Setting up your lightning node
+
+You'll need a couple things to make this app functional from a lightning perspective:
+
+1. A lightning node somewhere
+2. Inbound liquidity
+3. LNBits that talks to the node and is available on a stable IP address or domain
+
+### 1. Lightning node
+
+Check out [Voltage](https://voltage.cloud/) for cloud node hosting.
+
+Popular self-hosting lightning node solutions include [Umbrel](https://umbrel.com/), [RaspiBlitz](https://raspiblitz.org/), and [MyNode](https://mynodebtc.com/).
+
+### 2. Inbound liquidity
+
+For Voltage nodes you can get a free inbound channel once your node is spun up and synced.
+
+Check out [Magma](https://docs.amboss.space/space/magma) if you want to buy some good liquidity.
+
+### 3. LNBits
+
+[LNBits has a great install guide](https://github.com/lnbits/lnbits-legend/blob/main/docs/guide/installation.md), including fly.io (which is a great way to deploy pixel-space itself)
+
+On Voltage there's a button in the dashboards section to add LNBits to your node.
+
+## Connecting pixel-space to LNBits
+
+It's not really a big deal.
+
+Create a file called `.env.local` and paste the contents of `.env` into it.
+
+Then add your LNBits info. It should look something like this:
+
+```
+DATABASE_URL="file:./dev.db"
+LNBITS_ORIGIN="https://abc123.lnbits.mydomain.com"
+LNBITS_INVOICE_KEY="abc123..."
+```
+
+These values should be visible on your LNbits wallet under "API info".
+
+## Deploying pixel-space to fly.io
+
+pixel-space persists data with a local sqlite db, and [fly.io](https://fly.io/) is one of the easiest ways to deploy an app with persistent data like this. If you're comfortable with hosting on a regular VPS or Heroku or whatever that works great.
+
+Alternatively, it wouldn't be a huge lift to make pixel-space deployable on a "serverless" host like Vercel or Netlify, because the most important "server" logic is actually running on LNBits. You'd just need a cloud db like Firebase or Supabase for persisting the pixel data.
+
+Anyway, here's how to fly.io:
+
+### Create a fly.io account
+
+[fly.io](https://fly.io/) (you can use your github account)
+
+### Install flyctl
+
+```
+curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh
+```
+
+### Generate fly.toml file
+
+There's already a fly.toml file in this repo, but that's for our own deployment. You can copy this config and then customize it by running:
+
+```
+flyctl launch
+```
+
+Say yes to "Would you like to copy its configuration to the new app?"
+
+Enter an app name and region, say no to postgres and don't deploy now.
+
+Edit the new fly.toml file to include these lines:
+
+```
+[env]
+  DATABASE_URL = "file:/data/pixels.db"
+  PORT = "8080"
+
+[mounts]
+  destination = "/data"
+  source = "pixel_data"
+```
+
+These let fly know where to find the persistent sqlite file which will be stored in a fly "volume." Which we'll create now:
+
+```
+flyctl volumes create pixel_data
+```
+
+# set your secrets
+
+fly secrets set LNBITS_ORIGIN="https://abc123.lnbits.mydomain.com" LNBITS_INVOICE_KEY="abc123..."
+
+flyctl deploy
+
+```
+
+```