create-meith 0.17.2 → 0.18.0

package/src/scaffold.ts

@@ -1,11 +1,78 @@
+export type ScaffoldTarget = 'self-host' | 'vercel'
+
 export interface ScaffoldOptions {
   readonly name: string
   readonly version: string
   readonly repositoryUrl: string
+  readonly target?: ScaffoldTarget
+  readonly templateRepositoryUrl?: string
 }
 
 export const DEFAULT_REPOSITORY_URL = 'https://github.com/meith-dev/meith'
 
+export const DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_REPOSITORY_URL = 'https://github.com/meith-dev/vercel-template'
+
+export const NEXT_VERSION = '16.3.1'
+
+export const AT_ROOT_FLAG = '--at-root'
+
+export const MATERIALIZED_AT_ROOT = [
+  'app',
+  'src',
+  'public',
+  'next.config.mjs',
+  'postcss.config.mjs',
+  'components.json',
+  'instrumentation.ts',
+  'proxy.ts',
+  'tsconfig.json',
+  'next-env.d.ts',
+]
+
+export const VERCEL_BUILD_COMMAND = `community migrate && forum-web build ${AT_ROOT_FLAG}`
+
+export const TICK_PATH = '/api/system/tick'
+
+export const TICK_SCHEDULE = '* * * * *'
+
+export const MATERIALIZED_PUBLIC = [
+  'placeholder-logo.png',
+  'placeholder-logo.svg',
+  'placeholder-user.jpg',
+  'placeholder.jpg',
+  'placeholder.svg',
+  'sw.js',
+]
+
+const AT_ROOT_IGNORE_PATHS = MATERIALIZED_AT_ROOT.flatMap((entry) =>
+  entry === 'public' ? MATERIALIZED_PUBLIC.map((file) => `/public/${file}`) : [`/${entry}`],
+).join('\n')
+
+const AT_ROOT_IGNORES = `# What \`forum-web ${AT_ROOT_FLAG}\` writes into this directory: @meith/web's own
+# Next app, materialized here rather than into .meith/app so that the build
+# artefact lands at ./.next, where Vercel's Next.js builder reads it. Every
+# path here belongs to the framework and is rewritten on every build.
+#
+# public/ is listed file by file rather than as a directory, because that one
+# is shared: forum-web decides what it owns per file, so this board's own
+# public/ads.txt, public/.well-known/... or domain-verification file sits
+# beside the framework's and is tracked normally.
+#
+# app/ and src/ are ignored WHOLESALE, and that has a consequence worth
+# knowing before you go looking for it: a file you add under either is left
+# alone by the build and still never committed, so it works locally and is
+# simply absent from the deploy, which builds from what git has. Extend the
+# board with a plugin or a theme instead — the forum loads those from
+# community.config.ts, and they are yours to commit. forum-web prints a
+# warning naming any file of yours it finds there.
+#
+# For the rest, a build refuses rather than overwriting a file it did not
+# write, and names it. The two exceptions are tsconfig.json and
+# next-env.d.ts: forum-web generates those from scratch every run rather than
+# copying them, so it cannot tell one of yours from a stale one of its own
+# and replaces them without asking.
+${AT_ROOT_IGNORE_PATHS}`
+
 const NAME_PATTERN = /^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9._-]{0,213}$/
 
 export function validateName(name: string): string | null {
@@ -20,8 +87,317 @@ export function validateName(name: string): string | null {
   return null
 }
 
+const ENV_REQUIRED_HEADING = `# ─── Required ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────`
+
+const ENV_OPTIONAL_HEADING = `# ─── Optional ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────`
+
+const ENV_DATABASE_URL_PROSE = `# Your Postgres connection string.
+#
+# If it is a managed database that offers a TRANSACTION-MODE POOLER string, use
+# that rather than the direct one — Neon, Supabase and their kind hand out both,
+# and on the direct string a board works in testing and starts refusing
+# connections under the first real traffic, with an error that names the
+# database rather than the cause. Your own Postgres, with a fixed number of
+# processes in front of it, does not need one.`
+
+const ENV_DIRECT_DATABASE_URL_PROSE = `# The other half of that pair: the DIRECT (non-pooler) string, used only by
+# \`community migrate\` and \`community backup\`. Migrations hold a session-level
+# advisory lock so that two deploys landing together queue instead of both
+# applying the same migration, and a transaction-mode pooler cannot hold that
+# lock: it takes the connection back the moment the lock statement ends, which
+# leaves the lock on a backend another client gets. Set both and each gets the
+# connection it needs; set only DATABASE_URL and migrations use it too, which is
+# right for a Postgres you run yourself.`
+
+const ENV_AUTH_SECRET_PROSE = `# Session and token signing. No default, deliberately: a shipped default is a
+# board every reader of the source can sign a session for.
+#
+#   node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64url'))"`
+
+const ENV_TICK_SECRET_PROSE = `# The shared secret the tick caller presents to GET /api/system/tick. Generate
+# it the same way. Without it the tick is unauthenticated, and the tick is how
+# bans expire and digests send.`
+
+const ENV_DATA_SOURCE_PROSE = `# fixture = deterministic in-memory sample data, no database needed. This is
+# what \`npm run build\` uses, and what a checkout with no database falls back to.`
+
+const ENV_APP_URL_PROSE = `# Absolute, no trailing slash. Used in mail, feeds and canonical URLs — every
+# place a relative URL cannot work because there is no request to be relative to.
+#
+# Optional: leave it blank and the installer asks, prefilled from the address you
+# load /install at, and stores the answer on the board where the settings screen
+# can change it without a redeploy. Set it here and it wins outright.`
+
+const ENV_SMTP_MAIL_BLOCK = `# Mail. Leave these alone and the installer asks for mail on first run, storing
+# it on the board — a settings screen with a test button, no redeploy. Set
+# MAIL_DRIVER here instead and the environment wins outright, which is what you
+# want if the credential must not live in the database.
+#
+# The default sends NOTHING: each message goes to the server log, so password
+# reset fails silently until mail is configured one way or the other.
+# MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
+# MAIL_SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
+# MAIL_SMTP_PORT=465
+# MAIL_SMTP_SECURITY=tls        # tls (465) | starttls (587) | none
+# MAIL_SMTP_USERNAME=
+# MAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD=
+# MAIL_FROM=noreply@yourdomain.com`
+
+function selfHostEnvExample(name: string): string {
+  return `# ${name} — environment.
+#
+# Copy to .env.local for development. On the server this is \`.env\` beside the
+# compose file; nothing here belongs in git.
+
+${ENV_REQUIRED_HEADING}
+
+${ENV_DATABASE_URL_PROSE}
+DATABASE_URL=
+
+${ENV_DIRECT_DATABASE_URL_PROSE}
+# DIRECT_DATABASE_URL=
+
+${ENV_AUTH_SECRET_PROSE}
+AUTH_SECRET=
+
+${ENV_TICK_SECRET_PROSE}
+TICK_SECRET=
+
+${ENV_OPTIONAL_HEADING}
+
+${ENV_DATA_SOURCE_PROSE}
+DATA_SOURCE=postgres
+
+${ENV_APP_URL_PROSE}
+APP_URL=
+
+${ENV_SMTP_MAIL_BLOCK}
+
+`
+}
+
+function vercelEnvExample(name: string): string {
+  return `# ${name} — environment, on Vercel.
+#
+# Nothing on Vercel reads this file. The platform holds each of these as a
+# project environment variable, and the Deploy Button in README.md asks for the
+# ones it cannot provision itself. This is the reference for what they mean —
+# and the file to copy to .env.local to run the same board on your own machine.
+
+# ─── Drivers ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+# An instance is created for a request, may be frozen between requests, and is
+# destroyed without warning; it has a writable /tmp nothing else can read and no
+# background process of its own. Every driver below therefore keeps its state
+# somewhere outside the instance, and these five values are not a default to
+# tune — they are the one combination the board supports on functions.
+#
+# DATA_SOURCE=fixture is a read-only sample board with no write side.
+# QUEUE_DRIVER=memory loses every queued job when the instance goes away, which
+# is after almost every request, and the board already refuses it in production.
+# CACHE_DRIVER=next and memory cache inside the process, so each instance serves
+# its own stale copy for up to a minute. FILESTORE_DRIVER=local writes to a disk
+# no other instance can read and that is discarded with the instance — on Vercel
+# the board refuses it outright rather than losing uploads quietly.
+#
+# CACHE_DRIVER and FILESTORE_DRIVER are asked for at deploy time. The other
+# three derive themselves: a DATABASE_URL means postgres for the data source and
+# the queue, and a RESEND_API_KEY with a MAIL_FROM beside it means mail over the
+# provider's HTTPS API. Setting one here overrides the derivation, which is what
+# this file is for when you copy it to .env.local.
+#
+# The two that stay explicit stay that way on purpose: each turns on an external
+# service the board then depends on for every request, and neither is switched on
+# by a variable that merely happens to be present. The board caches in Redis and
+# puts uploads in an object store because you said so.
+#
+# What happens if you leave one blank differs, and the difference is the reason
+# the form asks for both. Leave FILESTORE_DRIVER blank and the board refuses to
+# boot at all: the default is local, and local on this platform means uploads
+# written to a disk that is about to disappear. Leave CACHE_DRIVER blank and
+# nothing complains — the board falls back to caching inside each instance and
+# serves whatever that instance last saw, for up to a minute, however many
+# instances there are. That one degrades quietly, which is exactly why it is
+# worth typing rather than leaving to a default.
+DATA_SOURCE=postgres
+QUEUE_DRIVER=postgres
+CACHE_DRIVER=redis
+FILESTORE_DRIVER=blob
+MAIL_DRIVER=http
+
+${ENV_REQUIRED_HEADING}
+
+${ENV_DATABASE_URL_PROSE}
+DATABASE_URL=
+
+${ENV_DIRECT_DATABASE_URL_PROSE}
+#
+# On Vercel this is not optional. DATABASE_URL here is the pooler string, the
+# build runs \`community migrate\` against it, and /install takes the second of
+# those two session locks on first run. Neon publishes the direct string as
+# DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED; copy that value into this variable.
+DIRECT_DATABASE_URL=
+
+# The shared cache — a Redis or Valkey endpoint, \`rediss://\` for TLS. Redis
+# holds cache entries and nothing else: losing it costs the board a warm cache,
+# not data, and signs nobody out. A store provisioned with the board publishes
+# its own connection variable; copy that value into this one.
+REDIS_URL=
+
+${ENV_AUTH_SECRET_PROSE}
+AUTH_SECRET=
+
+${ENV_TICK_SECRET_PROSE}
+#
+# Vercel Cron sends \`Authorization: Bearer <CRON_SECRET>\` and cannot be told to
+# send any other name, so CRON_SECRET is the one to set here. The board accepts
+# either name, and both when both are set. Whichever you use, 32 characters is
+# the floor — stricter than the 16 Vercel's own cron documentation suggests, so
+# a secret generated by following those instructions is rejected here.
+CRON_SECRET=
+# TICK_SECRET=
+
+# Uploads, in the Vercel Blob store the Deploy Button provisions. The store
+# publishes this variable into the project by itself, so there is nothing to
+# type and nothing to mistype — but the board still needs FILESTORE_DRIVER=blob
+# above before it will use it. Every object is written with private access: an
+# object URL is not a public link, and member content is served by the board,
+# which is where permissions are checked.
+#
+# An upload is held whole in the instance's memory on the way in and on the way
+# out, so the function's memory limit, not the store, is what caps a file.
+BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN=
+
+# Uploads in an S3-compatible bucket instead — AWS, R2, MinIO, Spaces. This is
+# the portable option, and the one every other deployment of this board uses:
+# a bucket is a thing you hold, and it is not the only way to get the objects
+# out of it. Set FILESTORE_DRIVER=s3 above and the first four below; boot fails
+# naming any that are missing. S3_ENDPOINT is for anything that is not AWS and
+# switches the client to path-style addressing; set S3_REGION=auto for R2.
+# S3_PUBLIC_BASE_URL is the host objects are *served* from when that is not the
+# API endpoint.
+# S3_BUCKET=
+# S3_REGION=
+# S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
+# S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
+# S3_ENDPOINT=
+# S3_PUBLIC_BASE_URL=
+
+# Mail over the provider's own HTTPS API, on 443 — the one outbound path a
+# function can rely on. SMTP on port 25 is blocked by serverless egress and the
+# board refuses it on Vercel; 587 with STARTTLS may work, but an API does not
+# depend on the platform's egress rules staying as they are.
+#
+# MAIL_FROM is yours to decide and the one mail value the button asks for: it
+# must be an address at a domain the provider has verified for you, and no
+# default is right. Send from an unverified sender and the provider rejects
+# every message.
+MAIL_FROM=
+
+# Add the Resend integration to the project from Vercel's marketplace and it
+# publishes its key under this name, which the board reads: with RESEND_API_KEY
+# set, and MAIL_FROM beside it, the board sends over Resend's HTTPS API and
+# needs neither of the two variables below. The mail driver itself is a plain
+# JSON-over-HTTPS sender and is not Resend-specific — this is one injected name
+# bridged to the generic pair, not a provider baked into the board.
+RESEND_API_KEY=
+
+# Any other provider with the same shape — a bearer token and an endpoint that
+# accepts {from, to, subject, text, html, reply_to}. Set BOTH, plus
+# MAIL_DRIVER=http above; they do not turn the driver on by themselves, and only
+# RESEND_API_KEY implies it.
+#
+# Setting just one of them stands the Resend bridge down completely, on purpose:
+# the board will not hand a key issued for Resend to an endpoint you chose, nor
+# aim your token at Resend. Boot fails naming the half you left out. Delete
+# RESEND_API_KEY once you have moved off Resend.
+# MAIL_HTTP_ENDPOINT=
+# MAIL_HTTP_TOKEN=
+
+${ENV_OPTIONAL_HEADING}
+
+${ENV_APP_URL_PROSE}
+APP_URL=
+
+`
+}
+
+function envExample(name: string, target: ScaffoldTarget): string {
+  return target === 'vercel' ? vercelEnvExample(name) : selfHostEnvExample(name)
+}
+
+const SELF_HOST_DEPLOY_KIT = [
+  '.dockerignore',
+  '.github/workflows/build.yml',
+  'Dockerfile',
+  'docker-compose.yml',
+  'docker-entrypoint.sh',
+  'docker-healthcheck.sh',
+] as const
+
+const VERCEL_TYPED_DRIVERS = ['CACHE_DRIVER=redis', 'FILESTORE_DRIVER=blob'] as const
+
+const VERCEL_DERIVED_DRIVERS = [
+  'DATA_SOURCE=postgres',
+  'QUEUE_DRIVER=postgres',
+  'MAIL_DRIVER=http',
+] as const
+
+export const VERCEL_PROMPTED_ENV = [
+  'CACHE_DRIVER',
+  'FILESTORE_DRIVER',
+  'DIRECT_DATABASE_URL',
+  'REDIS_URL',
+  'AUTH_SECRET',
+  'CRON_SECRET',
+  'MAIL_FROM',
+] as const
+
+export const VERCEL_MARKETPLACE_STORES = [
+  { type: 'integration', integrationSlug: 'neon', productSlug: 'neon', protocol: 'storage' },
+  {
+    type: 'integration',
+    integrationSlug: 'upstash',
+    productSlug: 'upstash-kv',
+    protocol: 'storage',
+  },
+  { type: 'blob' },
+] as const
+
+export function deployButtonUrl(templateRepositoryUrl: string): string {
+  const params = new URLSearchParams([
+    ['repository-url', templateRepositoryUrl],
+    ['project-name', 'meith-board'],
+    ['repository-name', 'meith-board'],
+    ['env', VERCEL_PROMPTED_ENV.join(',')],
+    [
+      'envDescription',
+      'Two driver values, two secrets to generate, the direct database URL, the cache URL, and the verified address the board sends from.',
+    ],
+    ['envLink', `${templateRepositoryUrl}/blob/main/.env.example`],
+    ['stores', JSON.stringify(VERCEL_MARKETPLACE_STORES)],
+    ['skippable-integrations', '1'],
+  ])
+
+  return `https://vercel.com/new/clone?${params.toString()}`
+}
+
+function vercelJson(): string {
+  return `${JSON.stringify(
+    {
+      framework: 'nextjs',
+      buildCommand: VERCEL_BUILD_COMMAND,
+      crons: [{ path: TICK_PATH, schedule: TICK_SCHEDULE }],
+    },
+    null,
+    2,
+  )}\n`
+}
+
 export function scaffold(options: ScaffoldOptions): ReadonlyMap<string, string> {
   const { name, version, repositoryUrl } = options
+  const target = options.target ?? 'self-host'
+  const atRootFlag = target === 'vercel' ? ` ${AT_ROOT_FLAG}` : ''
   const files = new Map<string, string>()
 
   files.set(
@@ -33,15 +409,16 @@ export function scaffold(options: ScaffoldOptions): ReadonlyMap<string, string>
         private: true,
         type: 'module',
         scripts: {
-          dev: 'forum-web dev',
-          build: 'forum-web build',
-          start: 'forum-web start',
+          dev: `forum-web dev${atRootFlag}`,
+          build: `forum-web build${atRootFlag}`,
+          start: `forum-web start${atRootFlag}`,
           community: 'community',
         },
         dependencies: {
           '@meith/web': version,
           '@meith/cli': version,
           '@meith/theme-default': version,
+          next: NEXT_VERSION,
         },
         engines: { node: '>=22' },
       },
@@ -55,7 +432,7 @@ export function scaffold(options: ScaffoldOptions): ReadonlyMap<string, string>
     `# Every @meith/* dependency here is an exact version, not a range — see
 # README.md, "Upgrading", for why a range breaks the build. This makes that
 # the default for any \`npm install\` run in this project from here on,
-# including a plugin installed by hand later, not only the three packages
+# including a plugin installed by hand later, not only the four packages
 # the scaffold pinned itself.
 save-exact=true
 `,
@@ -138,67 +515,7 @@ export function installedPluginDefinitions() {
 `,
   )
 
-  files.set(
-    '.env.example',
-    `# ${name} — environment.
-#
-# Copy to .env.local for development. On the server this is \`.env\` beside the
-# compose file; nothing here belongs in git.
-
-# ─── Required ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
-# Your Postgres connection string.
-#
-# If it is a managed database that offers a TRANSACTION-MODE POOLER string, use
-# that rather than the direct one — Neon, Supabase and their kind hand out both,
-# and on the direct string a board works in testing and starts refusing
-# connections under the first real traffic, with an error that names the
-# database rather than the cause. Your own Postgres, with a fixed number of
-# processes in front of it, does not need one.
-DATABASE_URL=
-
-# Session and token signing. No default, deliberately: a shipped default is a
-# board every reader of the source can sign a session for.
-#
-#   node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64url'))"
-AUTH_SECRET=
-
-# The shared secret the tick caller presents to GET /api/system/tick. Generate
-# it the same way. Without it the tick is unauthenticated, and the tick is how
-# bans expire and digests send.
-TICK_SECRET=
-
-# ─── Optional ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
-# fixture = deterministic in-memory sample data, no database needed. This is
-# what \`npm run build\` uses, and what a checkout with no database falls back to.
-DATA_SOURCE=postgres
-
-# Absolute, no trailing slash. Used in mail, feeds and canonical URLs — every
-# place a relative URL cannot work because there is no request to be relative to.
-#
-# Optional: leave it blank and the installer asks, prefilled from the address you
-# load /install at, and stores the answer on the board where the settings screen
-# can change it without a redeploy. Set it here and it wins outright.
-APP_URL=
-
-# Mail. Leave these alone and the installer asks for mail on first run, storing
-# it on the board — a settings screen with a test button, no redeploy. Set
-# MAIL_DRIVER here instead and the environment wins outright, which is what you
-# want if the credential must not live in the database.
-#
-# The default sends NOTHING: each message goes to the server log, so password
-# reset fails silently until mail is configured one way or the other.
-# MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
-# MAIL_SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
-# MAIL_SMTP_PORT=465
-# MAIL_SMTP_SECURITY=tls        # tls (465) | starttls (587) | none
-# MAIL_SMTP_USERNAME=
-# MAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD=
-# MAIL_FROM=noreply@yourdomain.com
-
-`,
-  )
+  files.set('.env.example', envExample(name, target))
 
   files.set(
     '.gitignore',
@@ -641,11 +958,20 @@ echo "<password>" | npm run community -- user:create --username <name> --email <
 
 \`\`\`sh
 npm install --save-exact @meith/web@latest @meith/cli@latest @meith/theme-default@latest
-git commit -am "Upgrade @meith/web, @meith/cli and @meith/theme-default"
+npm install --save-exact next@$(node -p "require('./node_modules/@meith/web/package.json').dependencies.next")
+git commit -am "Upgrade Meith and the Next.js version it builds with"
 git push
 \`\`\`
 
-That one \`package.json\` change is the whole pin: \`Dockerfile\`'s own
+The second command is not optional. This board pins \`next\` itself, and
+nothing bumps it for you: upgrading only the \`@meith/*\` packages leaves the
+board's own pin on the old Next while \`@meith/web\` depends on the new one,
+which npm resolves by installing both — the build then runs on one version
+while everything reading \`package.json\` sees the other. Reading the version
+out of the freshly installed \`@meith/web\` is what keeps the two the same
+without anybody having to know the number.
+
+That \`package.json\` change is the whole pin: \`Dockerfile\`'s own
 \`FROM\` line takes the version as a build argument, and
 \`.github/workflows/build.yml\` reads it straight out of \`package.json\`'s
 own \`@meith/web\` dependency when it rebuilds — nothing in \`Dockerfile\`
@@ -667,9 +993,291 @@ otherwise would be worse than its absence.
 `,
   )
 
+  if (target === 'vercel') {
+    return vercelTree(files, {
+      name,
+      repositoryUrl,
+      templateRepositoryUrl: options.templateRepositoryUrl ?? DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_REPOSITORY_URL,
+    })
+  }
+
+  return files
+}
+
+interface VercelTreeOptions {
+  readonly name: string
+  readonly repositoryUrl: string
+  readonly templateRepositoryUrl: string
+}
+
+function vercelTree(
+  base: ReadonlyMap<string, string>,
+  options: VercelTreeOptions,
+): ReadonlyMap<string, string> {
+  const files = new Map(base)
+
+  for (const path of SELF_HOST_DEPLOY_KIT) files.delete(path)
+
+  files.set(
+    '.gitignore',
+    `node_modules
+.next
+.meith
+.vercel
+.env
+.env.local
+.env*.local
+*.log
+.DS_Store
+
+${AT_ROOT_IGNORES}
+`,
+  )
+
+  files.set('vercel.json', vercelJson())
+  files.set('README.md', vercelReadme(options))
+
   return files
 }
 
+function vercelReadme({ name, repositoryUrl, templateRepositoryUrl }: VercelTreeOptions): string {
+  return `# ${name}
+
+A forum, built on [Meith](${repositoryUrl}), running as Vercel functions.
+
+[![Deploy with Vercel](https://vercel.com/button)](${deployButtonUrl(templateRepositoryUrl)})
+
+## What the button provisions
+
+- **A copy of this repository** under your own GitHub account. Vercel builds
+  from it, and every later push to \`main\` redeploys.
+- **A Neon Postgres database**, attached to the project. Neon publishes the
+  pooled connection string as \`DATABASE_URL\` and the direct one as
+  \`DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED\`.
+- **An Upstash Redis store**, attached the same way, for the shared cache.
+  It publishes its own connection variable.
+- **A Vercel Blob store** for uploads, which publishes \`BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN\`
+  into the project by itself. This is the one value that used to be four hand-
+  typed \`S3_*\` secrets.
+- **A Vercel project** carrying \`vercel.json\` — the build command
+  \`${VERCEL_BUILD_COMMAND}\`,
+  which applies the schema before it builds, materializes the board's app at
+  the project root so the artefact lands where Vercel reads it, and the cron
+  entry that drives the tick.
+
+**Mail is the one thing the button does not set up**, and it takes one click
+after the deploy — see *Mail, in one click* below. The board boots and runs
+without it, and delivers nothing, silently, until it is done.
+
+## What to type into the deploy form
+
+**Two secrets**, generated rather than chosen. Thirty-two characters is a floor
+the board enforces at boot, not a suggestion:
+
+\`\`\`sh
+openssl rand -hex 32   # AUTH_SECRET
+openssl rand -hex 32   # CRON_SECRET
+\`\`\`
+
+\`CRON_SECRET\` is the name Vercel Cron sends, as \`Authorization: Bearer\`, and it
+cannot be told to send another. Note that this floor is stricter than the 16
+characters Vercel's own cron documentation suggests — a value generated by
+following those instructions is refused here, and the fix is a longer secret.
+
+**Two driver values**, and they are the two that turn on an external service
+the board then needs for every request:
+
+\`\`\`ini
+${VERCEL_TYPED_DRIVERS.join('\n')}
+\`\`\`
+
+Neither is inferred, deliberately: the board caches in Redis and puts uploads
+in an object store because you said so, never because a connection string or a
+token happened to be present.
+
+Leaving them blank fails differently, which is why the form asks for both.
+Blank \`FILESTORE_DRIVER\` means \`local\`, and the board **refuses to boot** on
+this platform rather than write uploads to a disk that is about to disappear.
+Blank \`CACHE_DRIVER\` complains about nothing: the board falls back to caching
+inside each instance, and every instance then serves whatever it last saw for
+up to a minute. That one degrades quietly, so type it.
+
+The remaining three drivers do derive themselves, and the form does not ask:
+a \`DATABASE_URL\` means \`DATA_SOURCE=postgres\` and \`QUEUE_DRIVER=postgres\`, and
+a \`RESEND_API_KEY\` with a \`MAIL_FROM\` beside it means \`MAIL_DRIVER=http\`:
+
+\`\`\`ini
+${VERCEL_DERIVED_DRIVERS.join('\n')}
+\`\`\`
+
+**Two connection strings copied from the stores the button just created.**
+\`DIRECT_DATABASE_URL\` takes Neon's \`DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED\` — migrations and the
+first-run installer each hold a session-level advisory lock, which a
+transaction-mode pooler cannot hold. \`REDIS_URL\` takes whatever variable the
+Upstash store published.
+
+**The address the board sends from**: \`MAIL_FROM\`. This is the only mail value
+you ever type. It has to be an address at a domain your mail provider has
+verified for you, so no default is right and the board cannot guess it — see
+*Mail, in one click* below. If you do not have one yet, put in the address you
+intend to use and finish verifying it afterwards; nothing else waits on it.
+
+That is seven fields. If you would rather keep uploads somewhere you hold
+yourself — see *Leaving Vercel* below for why that matters — set
+\`FILESTORE_DRIVER=s3\` instead and add \`S3_BUCKET\`, \`S3_REGION\`,
+\`S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID\` and \`S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY\` in the project's environment
+settings, with \`S3_ENDPOINT\` for a bucket that is not AWS (\`S3_REGION=auto\` for
+R2). The same board runs either way.
+
+## Mail, in one click
+
+A board that cannot send mail cannot reset a password, so do this before you
+invite anybody.
+
+1. Open your project on Vercel, go to **Storage → Marketplace** (or
+   **Integrations**), and add **Resend**. It creates a Resend account linked to
+   the project and connects your sending domain.
+2. Verify that domain in the Resend dashboard if you have not already. Resend
+   refuses to send from an address at a domain it has not verified.
+3. Redeploy, or let the next push redeploy.
+
+That is all. The integration publishes its key into the project as
+\`RESEND_API_KEY\`, and the board reads that name: with it set, and \`MAIL_FROM\`
+already in place, mail sends over Resend's HTTPS API with nothing further to
+configure.
+
+The board is not tied to Resend. Its mail driver is a plain JSON-over-HTTPS
+sender that posts \`{from, to, subject, text, html, reply_to}\` with a bearer
+token — Resend's \`POST /emails\` happens to be exactly that shape, which is why
+it needs no adapter. Any provider with the same shape works: set
+\`MAIL_HTTP_ENDPOINT\`, \`MAIL_HTTP_TOKEN\` and \`MAIL_DRIVER=http\` in the
+project's environment settings, and set the first two **together** — either
+one on its own stands the Resend bridge down, so a key issued for Resend is
+never presented to an endpoint you chose. Only \`RESEND_API_KEY\` turns the
+driver on by itself. Delete it once you have moved off Resend.
+
+Check it worked: sign in as the administrator and use the test button on
+**/admin → Settings → Mail**.
+
+## First run: \`/install\`
+
+The build applies migrations, but an empty schema is not yet a board. Open
+\`https://<your-deployment>/install\` once the first deploy is green. It asks for
+the board's name and address and for the first administrator's username, email
+and password, creates the board and that account, and then **seals itself**:
+\`/install\` answers 404 from then on. Run it against the database you intend to
+keep — the screens are the ones
+[docs/quickstart.md](${repositoryUrl}/blob/main/docs/quickstart.md#4-run-the-installer)
+walks through.
+
+## The tick
+
+\`vercel.json\` asks Vercel to call \`${TICK_PATH}\` on \`${TICK_SCHEDULE}\`. That
+route is how bans expire, digests send, mail leaves the outbox and the queue
+drains; nothing here runs it on its own, because there is no worker process on
+a function platform. Two things about it are worth knowing **before** you
+deploy rather than after:
+
+- **A per-minute schedule needs a paid plan.** Hobby allows a couple of cron
+  jobs and runs each of them roughly once a day, at an hour Vercel chooses;
+  only paid plans accept an arbitrary cron expression. A board ticking daily
+  still loses nothing — tasks are written so a missed run delays work rather
+  than dropping it — but "as it happens" notifications become a daily digest in
+  all but name. To keep a minute-by-minute tick on Hobby, drive
+  \`${TICK_PATH}\` from something else that can call a URL on a schedule — a
+  GitHub Actions workflow, a systemd timer, an uptime pinger — presenting
+  \`TICK_SECRET\` instead.
+- **\`maxDuration = 300\` is validated when the project builds, not when the
+  function runs.** A plan that does not allow 300 seconds therefore **fails the
+  deployment** rather than clamping the request. With Fluid Compute — the
+  default for new projects — Hobby allows 300 and this builds as written. With
+  Fluid Compute switched off, Hobby caps a function at 60 seconds and the build
+  fails. Turn Fluid Compute back on.
+
+A tick that reaches the tasks and runs them answers \`200\` even when one of them
+threw, with \`ok: false\` and the failure named in \`ran\`. That is deliberate:
+schedulers retry non-2xx answers, and a task that fails every time would turn
+each retry into another attempt against whatever it is failing against.
+
+## Upgrading
+
+\`\`\`sh
+npm install --save-exact @meith/web@latest @meith/cli@latest @meith/theme-default@latest
+npm install --save-exact next@$(node -p "require('./node_modules/@meith/web/package.json').dependencies.next")
+git commit -am "Upgrade Meith and the Next.js version it builds with"
+git push
+\`\`\`
+
+Vercel rebuilds on the push, and the build command applies the new migrations
+before it builds. \`--save-exact\` matters and \`.npmrc\` already sets it for
+everything else installed here.
+
+The second command is not optional. This board pins \`next\` itself — Vercel
+reads that pin to pick its Next.js builder — and nothing bumps it for you.
+Upgrading only the \`@meith/*\` packages leaves two versions of Next
+installed, the board built with one and the platform configured for the
+other. Reading the version out of the freshly installed \`@meith/web\` keeps
+them the same without anybody having to know the number.
+
+Migrations are forward-only. Recovery is by restore, so take a backup first —
+there is no down migration to undo a destructive one.
+
+## Leaving Vercel
+
+A board must stay movable, and the Blob store is the one part of this shape that
+is not portable: Neon and Upstash hand out ordinary Postgres and Redis strings
+that any host accepts, but a Vercel Blob store is reachable only through Vercel's
+own API and there is no bucket to sync out of it. **The uploads are the thing you
+have to carry out deliberately, and \`community backup\` is how.**
+
+Under \`FILESTORE_DRIVER=blob\`, \`community backup\` includes the uploads **by
+default** — it walks the Blob store, pulls every object, and puts them in the
+bundle beside the database dump. This is the opposite of the \`s3\` default, which
+skips them, because a bucket has its own backup story you can drive yourself and
+a Blob store does not:
+
+\`\`\`sh
+DATABASE_URL=…            # Neon's pooled string
+DIRECT_DATABASE_URL=…     # Neon's DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED
+FILESTORE_DRIVER=blob
+BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN=…   # copy it out of the project's environment settings
+npm run community -- backup
+\`\`\`
+
+Run that from a checkout of this repository, with those four values in the
+environment — the CLI talks to Neon and to the Blob store over the network, so
+it does not have to run on Vercel. The bundle it writes holds the dump *and*
+every object. Check the last line it prints: if it says *no uploads*, the
+uploads are not in the bundle and restoring it gives a board whose posts have
+broken images.
+
+Restoring puts them wherever the *restoring* board's \`FILESTORE_DRIVER\` points,
+so the same bundle moves the board either onward or away:
+
+\`\`\`sh
+# onto a self-hosted board with a bucket
+FILESTORE_DRIVER=s3 S3_BUCKET=… RESTORE_DATABASE_URL=… npm run community -- restore bundle.tar.gz
+
+# onto a board that keeps uploads on its own disk
+RESTORE_DATABASE_URL=… npm run community -- restore bundle.tar.gz --uploads-dir ./uploads
+\`\`\`
+
+Take one before you need it. A Blob store deleted with the Vercel project takes
+the attachments with it, and there is no second copy anywhere unless you made
+one.
+
+## Somewhere other than Vercel
+
+Everything above is one deployment shape.
+[docs/self-hosting.md](${repositoryUrl}/blob/main/docs/self-hosting.md) is the
+same board as containers you run yourself, and \`npx create-meith <name>\`
+scaffolds that shape instead — a Dockerfile, a compose file and a workflow that
+builds the image. [docs/scaling.md](${repositoryUrl}/blob/main/docs/scaling.md)
+explains why the drivers above are what they are, and why an S3-compatible
+bucket is the portable choice for uploads everywhere but here.
+`
+}
+
 export function nextSteps(name: string): readonly string[] {
   return [`cd ${name}`, 'npm install', 'cp .env.example .env.local', 'npm run dev']
 }