Schoolify

Make school easier, organized, and genuinely engaging. See claude.md for the full product spec and roadmap.md for the phased build order and progress.

Live: https://schoolify-blond.vercel.app

Stack

Next.js 15 (App Router) + TypeScript, Tailwind + shadcn/ui, PostgreSQL via Prisma, Clerk for auth, deployed on Vercel.

Local development

Prerequisites: Node 22+, Docker Desktop (for local Postgres).

docker compose up -d      # starts local Postgres on localhost:5432
npm install
npx prisma migrate dev    # applies the schema
npm run dev                # http://localhost:3000

The app will build and the database will work locally without any external accounts. Auth (Clerk) requires the account setup below before sign-in/sign-up actually function.

One-time account setup

Three external services need accounts before the app is fully functional. None of this can be done by an agent — each requires signing in as you.

1. Clerk (auth) — required to sign in locally or in production

1. Create a free app at dashboard.clerk.com.

2. Copy the Publishable key and Secret key into .env:

   NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY="pk_..."
   CLERK_SECRET_KEY="sk_..."
   

3. In the Clerk dashboard, add a webhook endpoint pointing at https://<your-deployed-domain>/api/webhooks/clerk (once deployed — see below), subscribed to user.created, user.updated, user.deleted. Copy the Signing secret into .env as CLERK_WEBHOOK_SIGNING_SECRET. This is what keeps our User table in sync with Clerk; without it, the dashboard will show "waiting on the Clerk webhook to sync."

   To test this locally before deploying, use the Clerk CLI's tunnel instead of a real domain:

   clerk webhooks listen --forward-to http://localhost:3000/api/webhooks/clerk
   

   It prints a https://webhooks.clerk.com/in/c_.../ relay URL — add that as the dashboard endpoint (steps above) to get a local signing secret.

2. Managed Postgres — required before deploying (local dev uses Docker instead)

1. Create a free database at neon.com or supabase.com.
2. Copy the connection string into DATABASE_URL (in Vercel's environment variables when you deploy — see below).
3. Run npx prisma migrate deploy against it once, to create the schema.

3. Vercel — deployment

1. Push this repo to GitHub (already done if you're reading this from the repo).
2. Import the repo at vercel.com/new.
3. Add the environment variables from .env (Clerk keys + webhook secret, and the managed DATABASE_URL from step 2) in the Vercel project settings.
4. Deploy. Update the Clerk webhook URL (step 1.3) to point at the real deployed domain.

CI

.github/workflows/ci.yml runs lint, typecheck, a Prisma migration check, and a production build against a throwaway Postgres service on every push — no account setup needed for CI itself.