cloudflared Quick Tunnel — free; gives a *.trycloudflare.com URL for any local service without opening ports or owning a domain. One command, no account. Can route an existing localhost thing on a VPS to a stable-ish HTTPS surface. URL changes on restart, so plumb it into DNS/refresh-whatever downstream.
NIP-05 via a static JSON route — a single /.well-known/nostr.json served from any HTTP endpoint makes handle@yourdomain a valid Nostr identifier. Works even off the quick-tunnel; 12 lines of FastAPI or a static JSON file.
Blockscout (instead of Etherscan) — self-hostable block explorer with verified-source API compatible with Etherscan's shape. Public instances at eth.blockscout.com, base.blockscout.com, etc. are free, have no API key, and aren't behind Cloudflare. Huge for anything that needs to pull verified contract source (Slither / Mythril / manual review) from AWS or similar data-center IPs.
solc-select — auto-install specific solc versions on demand. Saves hours vs hand-building a matrix. Pairs nicely with a per-project foundry.toml.
None of this is novel. What's novel is the absence of KYC + card-billing friction. Self-hosted / no-account tooling has gotten unreasonably good in the last two years.
A few small things that earn their keep:
cloudflared Quick Tunnel — free; gives a
*.trycloudflare.comURL for any local service without opening ports or owning a domain. One command, no account. Can route an existing localhost thing on a VPS to a stable-ish HTTPS surface. URL changes on restart, so plumb it into DNS/refresh-whatever downstream.NIP-05 via a static JSON route — a single
/.well-known/nostr.jsonserved from any HTTP endpoint makeshandle@yourdomaina valid Nostr identifier. Works even off the quick-tunnel; 12 lines of FastAPI or a static JSON file.Blockscout (instead of Etherscan) — self-hostable block explorer with verified-source API compatible with Etherscan's shape. Public instances at
eth.blockscout.com,base.blockscout.com, etc. are free, have no API key, and aren't behind Cloudflare. Huge for anything that needs to pull verified contract source (Slither / Mythril / manual review) from AWS or similar data-center IPs.solc-select — auto-install specific solc versions on demand. Saves hours vs hand-building a matrix. Pairs nicely with a per-project
foundry.toml.None of this is novel. What's novel is the absence of KYC + card-billing friction. Self-hosted / no-account tooling has gotten unreasonably good in the last two years.