How to Use DEV·TV: The Beginner's Guide

CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-03T23:41:12.235Z · 13 min read min read

DEV·TV is not a dashboard, and it is not trying to be one. It is exactly what the name promises: a TV for the developer internet that runs in your browser. You open a page, pick a channel, and the developer ecosystem starts broadcasting at you — trending GitHub repos, Hacker News threads, fresh Hugging Face models, CVEs, AI papers, and a community showcase called Spotlight. If you want to learn how to use DEV·TV, the good news is that there is almost nothing to learn. There is no signup, no install, no backend, and no account. The whole thing is a single HTML file hosted on GitHub Pages. (One quick disambiguation: this is not Apple's Developer app for Apple TV, and it is not LG's webOS developer mode — DEV·TV is a browser page built by developer Shouvik Palit, and everything in this guide is about that.)

This is the guide the search results do not currently have. If you found this page by searching for how to use devtv or devtv developer tv, you are in the right place — DEV·TV (with the middle dot) is the maker's own stylization of the name, and devtv is how most people type it. The maker's own dev.to essays explain the idea behind DEV·TV, and a product trailer shows the concept, but no independent hands-on walkthrough exists as of this writing. This article covers the complete arc: opening the TV, surfing the channels, starring in the YOU ON TV report, getting your project onto Spotlight, forking the whole thing for yourself, and setting it up as a second screen or office TV.

It helps to know GitHub first, because YOU ON TV and Spotlight submissions both run through GitHub — if you need a refresher, the GitHub beginner guide covers the basics in one sitting.

What is DEV·TV?

DEV·TV is a free, open-source, browser-based TV for developer content. It is a single index.html file, hosted on GitHub Pages at shouvik12.github.io/devtv, that plays rotating streams of developer content the way a TV plays channels. There is no backend, no database, no login, and no build step. The source code is published under Apache-2.0, and the site currently runs version 2.0.0.

The idea, in the maker's own words from his October 2, 2026 launch essay, is a simple question: "What if the developer internet could simply be on?" The name DEV·TV is short for "developer TV" — plain devtv is simply how most people type it, and it resolves to the same product. A TV does not require you to arrive with a question. You open it, you leave it running, and it keeps showing what is happening. DEV·TV applies that idea to the places developers already watch: GitHub, Hacker News, DEV, Hugging Face, security feeds, research channels, and release trackers. You keep working, and occasionally something catches your eye. As the maker puts it: "Most of it can pass by unnoticed. But occasionally: something makes you look up. That's the interaction I care about."

How do I open and start watching DEV·TV?

Open https://shouvik12.github.io/devtv in any modern browser — that is the entire setup. There is nothing to install, no extension to add, and no account to create. Follow this five-step arc the first time:

1. Open the page. The TV powers on with a CRT-style boot effect and lands on a channel. Sound is off by default; stories begin rotating on their own in a NOW / NEXT / LATER cycle, with a ticker scrolling story titles along the bottom.
2. Pick a channel. The channel strip lists every available channel — select one and the TV switches to it immediately. Your enabled channels and playback speed are saved in the browser's localStorage, so the TV remembers your setup next visit.
3. Read or watch inside the TV. Selecting a story opens the in-TV reader: DEV articles open as readable text, GitHub repos show their README, papers show abstracts, CVEs show descriptions, and YouTube videos play right on the screen via privacy-friendly embeds.
4. Tune the experience. Open ⚙ Settings to enable or disable channels and adjust playback speed. This is also where the Spotlight submission form lives.
5. Leave it running. That is the intended interaction. Put the tab on a second monitor, full-screen it, and get back to work.

What are the DEV·TV channels?

DEV·TV currently airs 15 channels, as of the v2.0.0 lineup verified on November 3, 2026. The lineup moves fast — the GitHub README still says 13 while the live site already shows 15 — so treat this as a snapshot of the current lineup rather than a permanent list. Here is what each channel broadcasts and who it is for:

A few of the newer channels deserve a closer look. HN PICKS was inspired by Andrej Karpathy's HackerTube idea: it surfaces videos that Hacker News users recommend in comments, ranked by how many distinct people recommended each video, with titles pulled from YouTube's public oEmbed data. LOCAL MODELS is fed by a daily GitHub Action that saves a fresh model list, so the channel is never stale — and because each story ends with the exact ollama run command, a model that catches your eye is one terminal command away from running locally. MODEL FACE-OFF turns OpenRouter pricing and context-window data into head-to-head comparisons, which is genuinely useful the next time you are choosing a model for a project.

What is Spotlight, and how do I submit my project to DEV·TV?

Spotlight is the DEV·TV channel that rotates featured developer projects built by the community. Instead of scraped feeds, Spotlight shows projects real developers built — tools, visualizations, small experiments — so that the people who built them get seen by everyone who tunes in. If you have built something you are proud of, Spotlight is the channel that can put it on TV.

Submissions come in two forms: a live project you have hosted somewhere (a tool, a visualization, a small experiment), or a GitHub repo with a clear README — even if there is no hosted demo yet. What gets picked is simple and human: "Submissions are reviewed by hand," the maker's Spotlight essay says, and "Every submission is read by hand, and if it fits it goes up on the Spotlight channel." There is no voting system — the maker's October 11 comment confirms it is "maintainer-picked" for now, though voting may come later. The archetype the essay cites is Astratide, an astrology visualizer sent in by a developer: "a small project, built by one person, that someone else can see, click on, and try for themselves." Make your project tryable, and you are already ahead.

You have three routes to submit a project to devtv:

1. The in-app form. Click "Submit your project" in the strip under the channel keys, or "Get your project featured" under any Spotlight story — or open https://shouvik12.github.io/devtv/?submit directly, which opens the submission form. The form asks for your project name, your name or handle, a one-line description, the link (must be https), and your email; you can optionally add a YouTube demo, a longer description, and up to five tags. You get a live preview of how your card will look on TV.
2. Email. Write to [email protected] with the subject "DEV·TV Spotlight". The default Send behavior opens your email app pre-addressed. The maker is explicit about privacy here: "Nothing leaves the page until you send that email."
3. YOU ON TV. Star in the YOU ON TV report with your GitHub username, pick one of your top three original repos, and submit with one tap. More on YOU ON TV in the next section.

A short description of what the project does and who it is for helps a lot, because a human reads every submission. Note that the channel lineup and submission routes can change as the product evolves — the details above were verified on the live site on November 3, 2026.

What is YOU ON TV?

YOU ON TV is a DEV·TV feature that turns your GitHub profile into a broadcast-ready TV report. Type any GitHub username into the ★ YOU ON TV feature and the TV generates a special report on that developer: their join date, total stars, top language, most-starred project, latest push, and follower count. It is the developer résumé as a television segment.

The devtv github report is shareable: the URL https://shouvik12.github.io/devtv/?on=username links directly to your personal broadcast. You can also download a 1200×675 PNG card of your report — sized for social posts — and every report ends with a "Submit for Spotlight" button, which makes YOU ON TV one of the fastest submission routes for your own projects.

How do I self-host my own DEV·TV?

You can run your own copy of DEV·TV on any static host, with no configuration needed. The entire app is one HTML file, so self-hosting is a three-step affair:

1. Fork the repo. The source is at github.com/shouvik12/devtv. One important rule: the source code is Apache-2.0, but the DEV·TV name and logo are the maker's brand assets — forks must use their own branding.
2. Push it to your host. For GitHub Pages, push the repo and enable Pages in Settings → Pages, pointing at the main branch root — index.html is already named correctly. Or use Netlify Drop: drag index.html into it and you are live.
3. Configure your Spotlight receiver (optional). If you run your own TV and want to receive project submissions, set the SPOTLIGHT_EMAIL constant in index.html to your address — each submitted project includes a ready-to-paste spotlight.json entry for you. You can also set SPOTLIGHT_SUBMIT_ENDPOINT to a Formspree, FormSubmit, or Web3Forms URL to skip the mailto flow entirely.

The maker notes that forking for internal team demo channels works today: a company could run its own DEV·TV showing its own releases and projects on the office TV. He also says v3 might introduce a backend, but everything up through v2 is lightweight frontend — which is why there is nothing to install and nothing to maintain.

Self-hosting is a natural excuse to brush up on the two skills it needs. The Git beginner guide covers forking and cloning the repo, and if you want to understand the hosting layer underneath GitHub Pages, read what is GitHub Pages.

How do I use DEV·TV as a second screen or office TV?

Full-screen DEV·TV on a second monitor or an office TV and leave it running — that is the setup the maker designed for. A browser tab in full screen on a spare monitor is all it takes at home; on an office TV, open the page in the TV's browser (or cast a tab) and let it broadcast. There is no remote control to learn, no playlist to manage, and no attention required. The broadcast continues while you work: coding, reading, building. Most of it passes by unnoticed — until something makes you look up.

The in-TV reader is what makes the second-screen setup practical. When a story catches your eye mid-work, you click it and read the DEV article, the GitHub README, the paper abstract, or the CVE description without leaving the TV — or you let the video play while you keep typing. If you want sound, unmute the tab; most people keep it muted and let the ticker do the work.

DEV·TV vs dashboard: which should I use?

Use DEV·TV when you want ambient awareness; use a dashboard when you have a specific question. That is the honest answer, and it is the maker's own framing: "A TV doesn't require you to arrive with a question." A dashboard is for monitoring something you own — your build status, your uptime, your deploy pipeline. DEV·TV is for the developer internet you do not own: what is trending on GitHub, what models dropped on Hugging Face, what papers appeared overnight, what the HN crowd is recommending. They do not compete. In fact, the ideal setup is both: your dashboard on one screen answering your questions, DEV·TV on the other screen surfacing questions you did not know to ask.

Sources

Every fact in this guide was fetched from primary sources on November 3, 2026:

• DEV·TV live site (v2.0.0 lineup, channel list, submission routes, YOU ON TV flow) — https://shouvik12.github.io/devtv
• DEV·TV GitHub repository (README, license terms, self-hosting steps) — https://github.com/shouvik12/devtv
• Shouvik Palit, "What If the Developer Internet Had a TV?" (concept essay, October 2, 2026) — https://dev.to/shouvik12/what-if-the-developer-internet-had-a-tv-b3o
• Shouvik Palit, "Spotlight: a TV channel for developer projects" (submission forms, hand-review process, October 9, 2026) — https://dev.to/shouvik12/spotlight-a-tv-channel-for-developer-projects-featuring-what-people-actually-build-5466
• DEV·TV product trailer — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF37kGJiAtc
• Product Hunt listing (via the repo description) — https://producthunt.com/products/dev-tv
• Maker's profile (bio, other projects) — https://dev.to/shouvik12

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DEV·TV free?

Yes. DEV·TV is free to use, requires no signup, and the source code is open source under Apache-2.0. There is no paid tier and no account — open the page and watch.

How many channels does DEV·TV have?

As of November 3, 2026, the live site runs 15 devtv channels: GITHUB, HACKER NEWS, DEV, HUGGING FACE, RELEASES, AI PAPERS, LATEST PAPERS, CVE, HN PICKS, CLOUD MODELS, AGENT SKILLS, MODEL FACE-OFF, LOCAL MODELS, HACKERTOOLS, and SPOTLIGHT. The lineup changes as new channels ship, so the site itself is the current source of truth.

How do I get my project featured on Spotlight?

When you submit your project to devtv, send a live hosted project or a GitHub repo with a clear README through the in-app form (shouvik12.github.io/devtv/?submit), by email to [email protected] with the subject "DEV·TV Spotlight", or with one tap from the YOU ON TV report. Every submission is read by hand, and if it fits, it goes into the Spotlight rotation.

Do I need to install anything to use DEV·TV?

No. DEV·TV is a single HTML file running entirely in your browser — no install, no extension, no backend, no login. Your channel settings and playback speed are stored in the browser's localStorage.

Can I run DEV·TV on my own site?

Yes. Fork github.com/shouvik12/devtv and host the single index.html file anywhere static hosting works — GitHub Pages, Netlify Drop, Cloudflare Pages, or Vercel. The code is Apache-2.0, but you must use your own branding since the DEV·TV name and logo are the maker's brand assets.