next-postgres

January 4th, 2022 ➝ I recommend you use www-react-postgres instead because it does not have an express server or a need for babel, therefore the template has less dependencies. That means there will be less attention cost required.

An example app with...

• Posts
• Comments
• Authentication

With some nice qualities...

• Full stack JavaScript
• Server side rendering

And you can deploy it to...

• Google App Engine
• Heroku

Feel free to use without attribution!

Production Examples:

• Maurice Kenji Clarke used the setup to create: https://indvstry.io/
• Parker Ruhstaller used the setup to create: https://leafist.com/
• Jay Graber used the setup to create: https://happening.net
• Rich C Smith is working on something wicked cool.
• Maybe you?

Preview:

• https://next-postgres.herokuapp.com/
• https://next-postgres.appspot.com/ (disabled because of flexible instance cost)

Stack

• NextJS + Custom Express
• Emotion CSS-in-JS
• Postgres
• Sequelize: PostgresSQL ORM
• Passport for local authentication
• Redux
• Babel

Why is this useful? Why should I care?

• Bad UX/UI so you are forced to make it your own!
• Some "production ready" are concepts baked in for you.
• You'll get server side rendering for free.
• You can move a little faster at a competition or hackathon.

Setup: Prerequisites

I use Homebrew to manage dependencies.

• Install Postgres: brew install postgres.
• Install Node 10.7.0+: brew install node. (Or update your node)

Setup: Quick newbies guide to Postgres

• On OSX, to run Postgres in a tab on the default port.

postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres -p 5432

• Postgres config is stored in ./config.js.
• Local database: sampledb.
• Username: test.
• Password: test.
• Please come up with something better in production.

First time Postgres instructions.

# Enter Postgres console
psql postgres

# Create a new user for yourself
CREATE ROLE yourname WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'yourname';

# Allow yourself to create databases
ALTER ROLE yourname CREATEDB;

# Exit Postgres console
\q

# Log in as your new user.
psql postgres -U yourname

# Create a database named: sampledb.
# If you change this, update config.js
CREATE DATABASE sampledb;

# Give your self privileges
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE sampledb TO yourname;

# List all of your databases
\list

# Connect to your newly created DB as a test
\connect sampledb

# Exit Postgres console
\q

Newbie tip: I use an app called TablePlus for postgres.

Setup: Run locally

In the root directory run these commands:

npm install
npm install -g babel-cli
npm install -g sequelize-cli
sequelize db:migrate
npm run dev

• Visit localhost:8000 in a browser to start development locally.
• You will need postgres running.

Deploy Heroku

To deploy with Heroku, please follow the instructions here.

Deploy Google App Engine

Please set up Google App Engine and download the Google Cloud SDK so you can use gcloud from the command line.

You will need to add an app.yaml. It will look something like this:

runtime: nodejs
env: flex

manual_scaling:
  instances: 1

resources:
  cpu: 1
  memory_gb: 0.5
  disk_size_gb: 10

env_variables:
  NODE_ENV: production
  PRODUCTION_USERNAME: your-database-username
  PRODUCTION_PASSWORD: your-database-user-password
  PRODUCTION_DATABASE: your-database-name
  PRODUCTION_HOST: your-database-host
  PRODUCTION_PORT: your-database-port
  PRODUCTION_SECRET: your-secret

Be sure to read the documentation

Make sure you add app.yaml to the .gitignore. You don't want to commit this file into your Github repository.

Then run npm run deploy. This configuration will cost you ~$40 a month.

What happened to Zeit's Now service?

• It is a great service.
• Now 2.0 is about serverless everything
• This example doesn't work with Now 2.0

Questions?

Feel free to slang any feels to @wwwjim.