Michigan Essentials Watch

A public advocacy tool from the Liberation Caucus at miutilitywatch.com. It helps Michigan residents see what they pay for essential utilities, understand who decides, and make their experiences heard.

• Tracker: sourced utility information by county (electric, natural gas, water, broadband). Figures come from stored database values with a visible source; missing data is labeled, never estimated.
• Bill Check: reads a resident's bill on their own device, hides personal details, lets them review the text, and only then sends that text for an optional AI explanation.
• Survey, Pledge and Build: ways to share experiences, see candidate pledges and get involved.

Stack

TanStack Start (React, Vite, TypeScript), Tailwind CSS, Supabase for public-read data, hosted on Vercel.

Development

You need Node.js and npm (or Bun).

git clone <this-repository-url>
cd <repository-name>
npm i
npm run dev

Useful checks:

npx tsc --noEmit -p .
npx eslint .
bun test tests/redact.test.ts

Project notes

Read AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md before making changes. They record the site's data and privacy guardrails, including the "no invented data" rule and how Bill Check handles personal information.