AppClimb

AppClimb — App Store keyword explorer

AppClimb is a freemium App Store keyword tool that answers one question: which keywords can my app actually rank for?

Search any keyword and get Apple's official Ads popularity (searchPopularity1to100, 1–100) with Apple's own weekly history, a difficulty estimate that shows its evidence, and a verdict (Worth targeting, Long-tail win, Competitive, Dominated, Low demand). Keyword Explorer works as a guest (8 new checks/day). A free account raises that to 30/day and unlocks 1 tracked app and the ASO assistant (5 messages/day). The optional Pro plan ($8/month, $64/year) lifts the limits, adds 52 weeks of Apple history, and cloud sync.

Popularity is Apple's relative score, or "≤N · Long tail" for terms below Apple's published top 500 in their category, or (only if Apple is unreachable) a labeled estimate. Difficulty is always an estimate. Nothing is search volume, and no history is invented. See ADR 0005.

Product surface

• Keyword Explorer (/) — search with autocomplete from Apple's list of real App Store searches; a "What people search" panel (rising, most searched, new this month, per category); a keyword table with popularity (source-labeled), 12-week Apple trend, difficulty, and verdict; a detail panel with the verdict reason, difficulty evidence, Apple's weekly popularity chart, related Apple searches, and the top 10 apps.
• My Apps tracker (/, sidebar) — add an iOS app by name, App Store URL, or ID; get metadata-based keyword suggestions; track scores, observed position in public iTunes results (first 200), notes, opportunity score, status filters, CSV export, and real rank history locally per app + storefront.
• Storefronts — 16 supported countries.
• Local history — Keyword Explorer: one real snapshot per keyword per day in appclimb:kw:v1:* (records from before Oct 2026 had an invented baseline; those points are dropped on load). My Apps: real position/metrics snapshots in appclimb:tracker:v1.
• Accounts & Pro (ADR 0004) — passwordless sign-in (Google OAuth or email magic link), Paddle billing, plan-aware quotas, and Pro cloud sync. Guest search stays open. Tracking and the assistant require a free account. The account chrome appears when NEXT_PUBLIC_PRO_ENABLED=1 or when GET /api/me reports configured: true.
• Agent access (ADR 0008) — remote MCP server at /mcp, setup on /connect. Listed in the official MCP Registry from server.json; Claude/ChatGPT directory status and submission texts are in docs/mcp-directory-submissions.md.
• Marketing pages — /app-store-keywords, /guides/keyword-research, /blog (+ 4 notes), /about, /pricing, /privacy, /terms, /refunds.

Architecture

A single Next.js app deployed as a Cloudflare Worker (OpenNext). The browser queries itunes.apple.com directly (Apple allows CORS * but blocks Cloudflare Worker IPs). Official popularity comes from the Worker's store of Apple's weekly published search terms (Apple Ads Platform API v1 with founder credentials, cached in D1; first use of a new storefront-week costs ~8 sequential Apple calls, and .github/workflows/warm-apple-terms.yml preloads them). Keyword history lives in the visitor's browser by default.

Monetization runs on the same Worker plus a D1 database (appclimb-db, staging appclimb-db-staging):

• src/app/api/auth/* — magic-link + Google sign-in, sign-out
• src/app/api/me — profile, plan, limits
• src/app/api/sync — Pro cloud sync (tracker / explorer blobs, LWW)
• src/app/api/billing/webhook — signed Paddle events → D1 subscriptions
• src/app/api/billing/portal — Paddle subscription management URLs
• src/app/api/chat, src/app/api/popularity — plan-aware quotas
• src/app/api/terms/{suggest,related,trending} — Apple's published search terms (D1-backed store in src/lib/search-terms-store.ts)
• migrations/ — D1 schema; src/lib — plan/auth/billing/sync/quota libs
• worker/, deploy/, compose.yml — frozen rollback artifacts from earlier architectures; never the current backend

Local development

npm installnpm run dev

Keyword Explorer / My Apps work without env vars (iTunes estimate fallback).

Official Apple Ads popularity needs server-only founder credentials:

# local — see .env.exampleAPPLE_ADS_CLIENT_ID=...APPLE_ADS_TEAM_ID=...APPLE_ADS_KEY_ID=...APPLE_ADS_PRIVATE_KEY="-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n...\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----"APPLE_ADS_ACCOUNT_ID=...
# production Worker secrets (never commit)npx wrangler secret put APPLE_ADS_CLIENT_IDnpx wrangler secret put APPLE_ADS_TEAM_IDnpx wrangler secret put APPLE_ADS_KEY_IDnpx wrangler secret put APPLE_ADS_PRIVATE_KEYnpx wrangler secret put APPLE_ADS_ACCOUNT_ID

Optional ASO Assistant (DeepSeek V4 Flash) needs a server-only key:

# localecho 'DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-...' >> .env.local
# production Worker secret (never commit the key)npx wrangler secret put DEEPSEEK_API_KEY

The key is used only by POST /api/chat. It is never shipped to the browser.

Monetization setup (accounts · Paddle · sync)

The backend ships inert: routes degrade to 503 and the account UI is hidden until the founder completes this checklist. Do it in sandbox first, then repeat for production.

1. Databases — already created: appclimb-db (production) and appclimb-db-staging. Local dev: npx wrangler d1 migrations apply appclimb-db --local.
2. Paddle — create an account at paddle.com, then under Products create “AppClimb Pro” with two prices: Pro Monthly $8 and Pro Yearly $64. Note their price IDs. In Sandbox → Developer tools → Authentication grab the API key, client-side token, and a notification/webhook secret.
3. Webhook — in Paddle, subscribe to subscription events (subscription.created/updated/paused/canceled) pointing at https://appclimb.app/api/billing/webhook.
4. Google OAuth — Google Cloud Console → APIs & Services → Credentials → OAuth client (Web) with authorized redirect URI https://appclimb.app/api/auth/google/callback.
5. Resend — resend.com → API key, verify appclimb.app as a sending domain (add the DNS records it shows).
6. Server secrets (Worker, never committed):
   bash

   npx wrangler secret put PADDLE_API_KEYnpx wrangler secret put PADDLE_WEBHOOK_SECRETnpx wrangler secret put RESEND_API_KEYnpx wrangler secret put GOOGLE_CLIENT_IDnpx wrangler secret put GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRETnpx wrangler secret put PRO_ENABLED   # value: 1  — enables plan quotas

7. Public build-time vars — GitHub → repo Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → Variables: NEXT_PUBLIC_PRO_ENABLED=1, NEXT_PUBLIC_PADDLE_CLIENT_TOKEN=<client token>, NEXT_PUBLIC_PADDLE_ENV=sandbox (then production), NEXT_PUBLIC_PADDLE_PRICE_PRO_MONTHLY=<price id>, NEXT_PUBLIC_PADDLE_PRICE_PRO_YEARLY=<price id>.
8. Staging — deploy with npm run deploy:cloudflare:web:staging and set the same secrets for the staging environment (npx wrangler secret put ... --env staging) before the production flip.

Verification

npm run lintnpm run typechecknpm testnpm run buildnpm run build:cloudflarenpm run test:e2e

npm run check runs lint, typecheck, coverage, and both builds.

Production configuration

Pushes to main run .github/workflows/cloudflare-deploy.yml, which builds, applies D1 migrations, deploys the web Worker, verifies the canonical homepage, waits for the sitemap, and notifies IndexNow. Deploys go live immediately — run npm run check and npm run test:e2e before pushing.

The canonical production host is https://appclimb.app; the staging Worker is appclimb-web-staging.