create-t3-turbo-clerk-neon

Starter turborepo based on create-t3-turbo using Clerk for authentication and Neon as serverless database.

Following changes have been made:

• add Clerk as authentication provided for both nexxt and expo app
• Update database package to use Neon instead of PlanetScale.
• remove the auth proxy app
• remove the auth package (no longer needed as replaced with Clerk)

Know issues

• Enabling Edge Runtinme on RSC is throwing a TRPC error
  I had to remove the use of the edge runtime from the Next App homepage as this cause an exception that I cannot trace down and resolve. This also happens to me on a clean version of the original create-t3-turbo repo.

Other considerations

• middleware configuration middleware.ts has been added under /app/nextjs/src to manage Clerk authentication and will require updating as you add routes to your app.
  In the current setup all the api routes that are not included into publicRoutes are not accessible regardless of them being declared as publicProcedure in your TRPC router. Non public API requests are rejected by the middleware without executing the user authenication code defined for the TRPC publicProcedure (under /packlages/api/src/trpc.ts) so the client never receive the Unauthorized Error thrown in that code.

• Environment variables
  Clerk publishable key is currently required as environment variable both in the .env in the root directory and in the .env file under /apps/expo. I am sure there's a better way to avoid this being duplicated... :)

• Local development To allow development with a local database without having to change the db drivers is possible to use a proxy provided by Neon that can be spawn up, together with a PostgreSQL instance via docker using the docker-compose.yaml file now included in the repo. A possible drawback with this approach is that it requires to use the Neon serverless drivers instead of the HTTP drivers, that I think may have different performances based on the use case.
  I've tried to have both options but as the drizzle object returned is different, that creates some challenges when it comes to typing.

Installation

What follow is an amended version of the original README from create-t3-turbo. All credits to the author :)

There are two ways of initializing an app using this repo. You can either use this repository as a template, clicking "Use this template" from the repository page.

or use Turbo's CLI to init your project (use PNPM as package manager):

npx create-turbo@latest -e https://github.com/Mirthis/create-t3-turbo-clerk-neon

## About

Ever wondered how to migrate your T3 application into a monorepo? Stop right here! This is the perfect starter repo to get you running with the perfect stack!

It uses [Turborepo](https://turborepo.org) and contains:

```text
.github
  └─ workflows
        └─ CI with pnpm cache setup
.vscode
  └─ Recommended extensions and settings for VSCode users
apps
  ├─ expo
  |   ├─ Expo SDK 49
  |   ├─ React Native using React 18
  |   ├─ Navigation using Expo Router
  |   ├─ Tailwind using NativeWind
  |   └─ Typesafe API calls using tRPC
  |   └─ Authentication using Clerk
  └─ next.js
      ├─ Next.js 14
      ├─ React 18
      ├─ Tailwind CSS
      ├─ E2E Typesafe API Server & Client
      └─ Authentication using Clerk
packages
  ├─ api
  |   └─ tRPC v11 router definition
  ├─ db
  |   └─ Typesafe db calls using Drizzle & Planetscale
  └─ ui
      └─ Start of a UI package for the webapp using shadcn-ui
tooling
  ├─ eslint
  |   └─ shared, fine-grained, eslint presets
  ├─ prettier
  |   └─ shared prettier configuration
  ├─ tailwind
  |   └─ shared tailwind configuration
  └─ typescript
      └─ shared tsconfig you can extend from

In this template, we use @acme as a placeholder for package names. As a user, you might want to replace it with your own organization or project name. You can use find-and-replace to change all the instances of @acme to something like @my-company or @project-name.

Quick Start

Note The db package is preconfigured to use Neon and is edge-bound with the Neon Serverless driver. If you're using something else, make the necessary modifications to the schema as well as the client and the drizzle config. If you want to switch to non-edge database driver, remove export const runtime = "edge"; from all pages and api routes.

To get it running, follow the steps below:

1. Setup dependencies

# Install dependencies
pnpm i

# Configure environment variables
# There is an `.env.example` in the root directory and one in the expo directory that you can use for reference (I need to see how to remove the duplication)
cp .env.example .env
cp ./apps/expo/.env.example ./apps/expo/.env

# Push the Drizzle schema to the database
pnpm db:push

2. Configure Expo dev-script

Use iOS Simulator

1. Make sure you have XCode and XCommand Line Tools installed as shown on expo docs.

   NOTE: If you just installed XCode, or if you have updated it, you need to open the simulator manually once. Run npx expo start in the root dir, and then enter I to launch Expo Go. After the manual launch, you can run pnpm dev in the root directory.

   +  "dev": "expo start --ios",

2. Run pnpm dev at the project root folder.

Use Android Emulator

1. Install Android Studio tools as shown on expo docs.

2. Change the dev script at apps/expo/package.json to open the Android emulator.

   +  "dev": "expo start --android",

3. Run pnpm dev at the project root folder.

TIP: It might be easier to run each app in separate terminal windows, so you get the logs from each app separately. This is also required if you want your terminals to be interactive, e.g. to access the Expo QR code. You can run pnpm --filter expo dev and pnpm --filter nextjs dev to run each app in a separate terminal window.

3. When it's time to add a new package

To add a new package, simply run pnpm turbo gen init in the monorepo root. This will prompt you for a package name as well as if you want to install any dependencies to the new package (of course you can also do this yourself later).

The generator sets up the package.json, tsconfig.json and a index.ts, as well as configures all the necessary configurations for tooling around your package such as formatting, linting and typechecking. When the package is created, you're ready to go build out the package.

FAQ

Does the starter include Solito?

No. Solito will not be included in this repo. It is a great tool if you want to share code between your Next.js and Expo app. However, the main purpose of this repo is not the integration between Next.js and Expo — it's the code splitting of your T3 App into a monorepo. The Expo app is just a bonus example of how you can utilize the monorepo with multiple apps but can just as well be any app such as Vite, Electron, etc.

Integrating Solito into this repo isn't hard, and there are a few official templates by the creators of Solito that you can use as a reference.

Does this pattern leak backend code to my client applications?

No, it does not. The api package should only be a production dependency in the Next.js application where it's served. The Expo app, and all other apps you may add in the future, should only add the api package as a dev dependency. This lets you have full typesafety in your client applications, while keeping your backend code safe.

If you need to share runtime code between the client and server, such as input validation schemas, you can create a separate shared package for this and import it on both sides.

Deployment

Next.js

Prerequisites

Note Please note that the Next.js application with tRPC must be deployed in order for the Expo app to communicate with the server in a production environment.

Deploy to Vercel

Let's deploy the Next.js application to Vercel. If you've never deployed a Turborepo app there, don't worry, the steps are quite straightforward. You can also read the official Turborepo guide on deploying to Vercel.

1. Create a new project on Vercel, select the apps/nextjs folder as the root directory. Vercel's zero-config system should handle all configurations for you.

2. Add your DATABASE_URL environment variable.

3. Done! Your app should successfully deploy. Assign your domain and use that instead of localhost for the url in the Expo app so that your Expo app can communicate with your backend when you are not in development.

Expo

Deploying your Expo application works slightly differently compared to Next.js on the web. Instead of "deploying" your app online, you need to submit production builds of your app to app stores, like Apple App Store and Google Play. You can read the full guide to distributing your app, including best practices, in the Expo docs.

1. Make sure to modify the getBaseUrl function to point to your backend's production URL:

   https://github.com/t3-oss/create-t3-turbo/blob/656965aff7db271e5e080242c4a3ce4dad5d25f8/apps/expo/src/utils/api.tsx#L20-L37

2. Let's start by setting up EAS Build, which is short for Expo Application Services. The build service helps you create builds of your app, without requiring a full native development setup. The commands below are a summary of Creating your first build.

   # Install the EAS CLI
   pnpm add -g eas-cli
   
   # Log in with your Expo account
   eas login
   
   # Configure your Expo app
   cd apps/expo
   eas build:configure

3. After the initial setup, you can create your first build. You can build for Android and iOS platforms and use different eas.json build profiles to create production builds or development, or test builds. Let's make a production build for iOS.

   eas build --platform ios --profile production

   If you don't specify the --profile flag, EAS uses the production profile by default.

4. Now that you have your first production build, you can submit this to the stores. EAS Submit can help you send the build to the stores.

   eas submit --platform ios --latest

   You can also combine build and submit in a single command, using eas build ... --auto-submit.

5. Before you can get your app in the hands of your users, you'll have to provide additional information to the app stores. This includes screenshots, app information, privacy policies, etc. While still in preview, EAS Metadata can help you with most of this information.

6. Once everything is approved, your users can finally enjoy your app. Let's say you spotted a small typo; you'll have to create a new build, submit it to the stores, and wait for approval before you can resolve this issue. In these cases, you can use EAS Update to quickly send a small bugfix to your users without going through this long process. Let's start by setting up EAS Update.

   The steps below summarize the Getting started with EAS Update guide.

   # Add the `expo-updates` library to your Expo app
   cd apps/expo
   pnpm expo install expo-updates
   
   # Configure EAS Update
   eas update:configure

7. Before we can send out updates to your app, you have to create a new build and submit it to the app stores. For every change that includes native APIs, you have to rebuild the app and submit the update to the app stores. See steps 2 and 3.

8. Now that everything is ready for updates, let's create a new update for production builds. With the --auto flag, EAS Update uses your current git branch name and commit message for this update. See How EAS Update works for more information.

   cd apps/expo
   eas update --auto

   Your OTA (Over The Air) updates must always follow the app store's rules. You can't change your app's primary functionality without getting app store approval. But this is a fast way to update your app for minor changes and bug fixes.

9. Done! Now that you have created your production build, submitted it to the stores, and installed EAS Update, you are ready for anything!

References

The stack originates from create-t3-app.