A full-screen missing-child alert for digital signage. Each time the page loads it shows one child picked at random from the open cases at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), nationwide or for one US state: their photo, their age now, when and where they went missing, and a QR code for the full NCMEC poster. The 24-hour 1-800-THE-LOST hotline is always on screen.
Live: https://missing-children.srly.io
Part of the Screenly signage family alongside on-this-day,
word-of-the-day and
quotes. Like those, it is a fully
static site hosted on GitHub Pages, built on
@screenly-labs/signage-kit. The
case data is fetched from NCMEC in the browser.
Settings are query parameters on the launch URL, declared in
.well-known/signage-app.json so the app store
renders the form.
| Parameter | Values | Default |
|---|---|---|
state |
Two-letter US state or territory code (CA, TX, PR, …) |
nationwide |
https://missing-children.srly.io/?state=CA
An unknown state falls back to nationwide.
Active AMBER Alerts come first. Each load checks NCMEC's active AMBER Alerts for the configured state (or nationwide):
https://api.missingkids.org/missingkids/servlet/JSONDataServlet?action=amberAlert&missState=CA
While an alert is active, the board shows a child from it, flagged AMBER Alert, with the alert's photo and poster. AMBER Alerts are usually resolved within hours; with none active (the usual case) the app shows a random open case as below.
The page calls the public JSON search behind missingkids.org:
https://api.missingkids.org/missingkids/servlet/JSONDataServlet?action=publicSearch&search=new&subjToSearch=child[&missState=CA]
Results come 20 to a page, newest first. On load the page fetches page 1
(which also reports how many pages there are), then one page chosen at random,
and picks one child from it at random, preferring a case with a photo. So every
open case gets screen time, not just the newest 20. The search answers CORS
requests from any origin, so the static page calls it directly with no server
and no API
key. Photos load from api.missingkids.org/photographs/…, and every case shows
a QR code for its official poster at missingkids.org/poster/…. The QR link
carries utm_source=missing-children&utm_medium=qr&utm_campaign=missing-child-poster
so the traffic these screens send is visible in NCMEC's analytics. The QR is
generated in the browser with
qrcode-generator (as in
rss-reader).
It's single-shot, like the quotes app: no rotation and no refresh timer. The player's reload brings the next child. If the random page fails, it falls back to a child from page 1; if nothing loads at all (offline signage), or a state has no open cases, the page shows a standing appeal with the hotline. There is deliberately no bundled fallback list: a stale record could show a child who has already been found.
- Bun for package management, bundling and tests (no npm/npx)
- TypeScript, strict; all browser JS is authored as
.ts - Tailwind CSS v4, CSS-first config, compiled by the Tailwind CLI
- Biome for lint + format
- Self-hosted Bricolage Grotesque + Hanken Grotesk, vendored via signage-kit
bun install
bun run dev # build, then serve dist/ locally
bun run build # build the static site into dist/
bun test # unit + manifest tests
bun run typecheck # tsc --noEmit
bun run lint # Biome (lint:fix / format to auto-fix)The layout is fluid (one clamp()-driven root size from signage-kit). Verified
landscape and portrait across:
| Resolution | Notes |
|---|---|
| 4096×2160 · 3840×2160 (+ portrait) | 4K |
| 1920×1080 (+ portrait) | 1080p |
| 1280×720 (+ portrait) | 720p |
| 800×480 (+ portrait) | Raspberry Pi Touch Display |
Deploys are tag-driven. Pushing a CalVer tag (YYYY.N.P, e.g. 2026.10.0)
runs .github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml, which builds and publishes dist/ to
GitHub Pages; it can also be run by hand (workflow_dispatch). Pushing to
master on its own does not deploy. CI (ci.yml) typechecks, lints, tests
and builds every PR.
One-time setup (outside this repo):
- DNS:
CNAMErecordmissing-children.srly.io → screenly-labs.github.io. - Repo → Settings → Pages: Source = "GitHub Actions"; set the custom domain
to
missing-children.srly.ioand enable "Enforce HTTPS" once the certificate provisions.
Case data and photographs are provided by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and are shown unaltered, with a link to each official poster and a standing credit on every screen. This app is not affiliated with or endorsed by NCMEC.
AGPL-3.0-only (see LICENSE).