tilefeed muimsd

cli gis mbtiles postgis vector-tiles

Use this command to install tilefeed:

winget install --id=muimsd.tilefeed -e

PostGIS vector tile pipeline with incremental MBTiles updates via LISTEN/NOTIFY

tilefeed

A PostGIS vector tile pipeline for MBTiles generation + incremental updates + HTTP serving + storage publish.

Architecture

PostGIS ──┬── Tippecanoe ──┐
          ├── GDAL ────────┤── MBTiles ──┬── Built-in HTTP server
          └── Native Rust ─┘             ├── Local copy
                                         ├── S3 upload
LISTEN/NOTIFY ── Debounce ── MVT encode ─├── Mapbox Studio
                                         ├── Custom command
                                         ├── Webhooks (HTTP POST)
                                         └── SSE (Server-Sent Events)

Full generation exports PostGIS layers through one of three backends (Tippecanoe, GDAL, or native Rust) to produce MBTiles. Incremental updates listen for PostgreSQL notifications, debounce and deduplicate affected tiles, re-encode them as MVT protobuf, and write them into the existing MBTiles file. The built-in HTTP server serves tiles directly from MBTiles with ETag caching and TileJSON metadata.

Why tilefeed?

Tool	Approach	How tilefeed differs
pg_tileserv	Serves tiles on-the-fly from PostGIS, no caching or pre-generation.	tilefeed pre-generates tiles into MBTiles for predictable latency and CDN-friendly serving.
Martin	Full-featured tile server with many backends, but more complex to deploy.	tilefeed is a focused pipeline that generates, serves, and incrementally updates MBTiles.
t-rex	Similar pre-generation approach but tightly coupled to its own built-in HTTP server.	tilefeed decouples generation from serving — use the built-in server or bring your own.
Tippecanoe cron	Periodic full re-runs via cron or CI. Misses real-time updates and wastes work.	tilefeed adds incremental updates via PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY, regenerating only affected tiles.

Features

Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, and Windows
Three generation backends: Tippecanoe, GDAL (ogr2ogr), and native Rust MVT encoder
Multiple sources: separate MBTiles outputs with independent layers and zoom ranges
Incremental tile regeneration using PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY with debounced batching
Built-in HTTP tile server with ETag caching, CORS, and TileJSON 3.0.0
Derived geometry layers: auto-generated label points and boundary lines from polygons
Geometry simplification (Douglas-Peucker) with per-zoom scaling
Per-zoom property filtering to reduce tile sizes at low zooms
Storage backends: local copy, S3, Mapbox Studio, custom command
Webhook notifications with HMAC-SHA256 signing and configurable cooldown
Server-Sent Events (GET /events) for live tile refresh in frontends
CLI tools: inspect, validate, diff for MBTiles diagnostics
Docker support with multi-stage build
Auto-reconnect on PostgreSQL connection loss with exponential backoff
WAL mode for concurrent MBTiles reads during writes

Installation

Prerequisites

PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension
Tippecanoe — only if using generation_backend = "tippecanoe" (default)
GDAL — only if using generation_backend = "gdal"
Neither needed for generation_backend = "native"

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap muimsd/tilefeed
brew install tilefeed

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add tilefeed https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed
scoop install tilefeed

Debian / Ubuntu (.deb)

curl -LO https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed/releases/latest/download/tilefeed_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i tilefeed_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL (.rpm)

curl -LO https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed/releases/latest/download/tilefeed-x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i tilefeed-x86_64.rpm

Cargo

cargo install tilefeed

Docker

docker build -t tilefeed .
docker run -v ./config.toml:/data/config.toml tilefeed serve

From source

Requires Rust 1.70+ and protoc (protobuf compiler).

# Install protoc
# Linux: sudo apt-get install -y protobuf-compiler
# macOS: brew install protobuf
# Windows: choco install protoc

git clone https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed.git
cd tilefeed
cargo build --release
# Binary: target/release/tilefeed

Pre-built binaries

Download from GitHub Releases:

Platform	Binary
Linux x86_64	`tilefeed-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu`
Linux ARM64	`tilefeed-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu`
macOS Apple Silicon	`tilefeed-aarch64-apple-darwin`
macOS Intel	`tilefeed-x86_64-apple-darwin`
Windows x86_64	`tilefeed-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc`

Usage

Commands

tilefeed generate            # full tile generation from PostGIS
tilefeed watch               # watch LISTEN/NOTIFY for incremental updates
tilefeed run                 # generate then watch
tilefeed serve               # generate, start HTTP server, and watch
tilefeed inspect       # inspect MBTiles metadata and statistics
tilefeed validate            # validate config against the database
tilefeed diff <a> <b>        # compare two MBTiles files
tilefeed -c other.toml serve # use alternate config file

If running from source: cargo run --release -- serve

Quick Start

1. Set up database + triggers

createdb geodata
psql -d geodata -c "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis"
psql -d geodata &lt; sql/setup_notify.sql

Attach the trigger to each source table:

CREATE TRIGGER tile_update_trigger
    AFTER INSERT OR UPDATE OR DELETE ON your_table
    FOR EACH ROW
    EXECUTE FUNCTION notify_tile_update('your_layer_name');

The trigger layer name must match a [[sources.layers]].name in config.

2. Configure

[database]
host = "localhost"
port = 5432
user = "postgres"
password = "postgres"
dbname = "geodata"

[serve]
host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 3000

# [webhook]
# urls = ["https://example.com/hooks/tilefeed"]
# secret = "my-signing-secret"
# cooldown_secs = 300

[[sources]]
name = "basemap"
mbtiles_path = "./basemap.mbtiles"
min_zoom = 0
max_zoom = 14
# generation_backend = "native"  # no external tools needed

[[sources.layers]]
name = "buildings"
table = "buildings"
geometry_column = "geom"
id_column = "id"
srid = 4326
properties = ["name", "type", "height"]
simplify_tolerance = 0.00001
generate_label_points = true

[[sources.layers.property_rules]]
below_zoom = 8
exclude = ["height"]

See full configuration reference for all options.

3. Run

# Full rebuild + serve + watch
tilefeed serve

# Or step by step:
tilefeed generate   # build MBTiles
tilefeed watch      # incremental updates only

Documentation

Doc	Description
Configuration Reference	All config fields, sections, and generation backends
Tippecanoe Settings	Fine-tuning Tippecanoe tile generation
Tile Serving	Built-in HTTP server, SSE, webhooks, and external alternatives
Derived Layers	Auto-generated label points and boundary lines
OGR_FDW Integration	Using external data sources via PostgreSQL FDW

Incremental Flow

PostgreSQL trigger emits pg_notify('tile_update', ...)
tilefeed debounces notifications into a batch
Events are routed to the correct source based on layer name
Affected tiles are derived from new/old feature bounds
Tiles are regenerated and written into the source's MBTiles
MBTiles artifact is published if publish_on_update = true
Webhook and SSE consumers are notified with affected zooms, tile counts, and max_zoom for overzoom awareness

Support

License

MIT