Hit Counters without Analytics

npx skills@latest add phucbm/skills --skill counterapi

I wanted two numbers for Hiểu Chữ Hán: how many times it is opened and how many people installed it as an app. GA4, PostHog and Umami all do far more than that and ask for a dashboard or a consent banner. counterapi.dev is a counter behind a URL: call /up to add one, read it back as { count }. The app shows both numbers in a small badge.

The rules

• Never count in development. Every reload while I work would be a visit, so the increment only runs in production.
• Never throw. The counter is a nice-to-have. Every call is wrapped and fails silently; reads fall back to zero.
• Show nothing rather than a zero. The badge renders only once a number arrives, so a slow or failed call leaves no "0 visits".

What it can't do: no referrers, no pages, nothing per day.