Developer builds YouTube news multistream viewer with Claude Code

A developer has built Beholder, a free YouTube news multistream viewer that displays dozens of live news streams simultaneously in an auto-scaling grid layout. The project was created using Claude Code on a fresh Raspberry Pi installation.

How Claude Code was used

The developer set up a fresh Raspberry Pi with Claude Code, giving it permission to install whatever was needed for development and debugging. According to the developer, Claude Code:

• Built the entire frontend UI including React components for adaptive stream grid, channel browser, settings panel, ticker bars, modals, toast notifications, and mobile-responsive layout
• Created a toast notification system for error handling so API failures aren't silent
• Added stream error detection that shows broken/offline streams with an overlay containing a YouTube link and remove button instead of just showing a black box
• Helped evaluate YouTube ToS to remain compliant for data gathering
• Debugged and fixed bugs caused by the database of live streams and the scanner software that keeps it updated
• Continues to handle admin tasks like "Hey Claude, the CNN URL is wrong, rescan and update the DB"

App features

Beholder provides:

• 200+ live news channels from 6 continents in a dynamic grid that auto-sizes to your screen
• Channels organized by region (US, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America) or by media bias rating
• Live scrolling news ticker pulling headlines from 30+ RSS feeds (AP, Reuters, BBC, CNN, etc.)
• Real-time stock market ticker with detailed quotes, top movers, and Yahoo Finance integration
• Internet outage ticker powered by Cloudflare Radar showing active outages by location and cause
• "Take a Break" mode that swaps news for lo-fi music, cartoons, nature cams, and meditation streams
• Pin/focus functionality to enlarge any stream while keeping others visible
• Per-stream and global mute, closed captions toggle, adjustable grid columns and font size
• Mobile, tablet, and desktop compatibility

Key differences from opening multiple YouTube tabs

• Background scanner continuously discovers which channels are actually live right now — no stale links
• Bias labels on every channel help users consciously diversify their news diet (or hide unwanted content)
• Ability to see how CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and Fox cover the same story side by side

Tech stack

• Frontend: React, Vite, Cloudflare Pages
• Backend: Python/FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Railway
• External APIs: YouTube API, Yahoo Finance API, Cloudflare Radar API, RSS

The developer notes this started as a personal tool for monitoring breaking news and has grown from there. The app is live at https://beholder.news.