If you want to jump straight to the source code, here's the link to the github repository.
Introduction
In this tutorial, we will build a simple blogging application using Next.js and Supabase. Next.js is a popular React framework for building server-side rendered and statically generated web applications, while Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative that provides a PostgreSQL database and authentication APIs out of the box. By combining these technologies, we can easily create a performant and scalable blogging platform.
Throughout this tutorial, we will cover the following topics:
- Setting up a Next.js project and integrating Supabase for authentication.
- Creating a PostgreSQL database schema for our blog application using Supabase.
- Implementing server-side rendering and client-side routing with Next.js.
- Building a user interface for creating, editing, and deleting blog posts using React components.
- Deploying our application to the cloud using Vercel.
By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functional blog application that can be customized and expanded to suit your needs. So let's get started!
Setup our project
Create a new project with next.js and typescript:
npx create-next-app@latest --typescript
Install supabase and bootstrap:
npm install supabase --save-dev
npm install @supabase/supabase-js
npm install @supabase/auth-helpers-nextjs @supabase/auth-helpers-react
npm install react-bootstrap bootstrap
Now we can initialize supabase:
npx supabase init
Which will create the supabase folder with the config, and finally, start all the services:
npx supabase start
Now for the Next.js part, we need to create a .env.local file in the project root and add the following environment variables (see the screenshot below for the values):
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=<your-supabase-api-url>
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_KEY=<your-supabase-api-key>
Lets start the dev server:
npm run dev
We are good to go!
The database
We only need a posts table with the following columns:
create table "public"."posts" (
"id" uuid not null,
"title" text not null,
"body" text not null,
"created_at" timestamp with time zone default now(),
"author" uuid not null
);
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX posts_pkey ON public.posts USING btree (id);
alter table "public"."posts" add constraint "posts_pkey" PRIMARY KEY using index "posts_pkey";
alter table "public"."posts" add constraint "posts_author_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (author) REFERENCES auth.users(id) not valid;
alter table "public"."posts" validate constraint "posts_author_fkey";
You can either create the table manually, or use the supabase dashboard.
Quick note on the
authorcolumn: we are using directly theuuidfrom theauth.userstable.
Usually as a good practice I would create aprofilestable with theidas the primary key and additionnal infos (like the name, the avatar, etc...).
But for this tutorial I will keep it simple.
Lets turn on RLS (Row Level Security) for the posts table, and authorise everyone to read the table, any logged in user to create posts, and finally only the owner can update:
alter table "public"."posts" enable row level security;
create policy "everyone can see posts"
on "public"."posts"
as permissive
for select
to public
using (true);
create policy "only logged in users can create posts"
on "public"."posts"
as permissive
for insert
to authenticated
with check (true);
create policy "only the user can edit"
on "public"."posts"
as permissive
for update
to public
using ((auth.uid() = author))
with check ((auth.uid() = author));
You can see (and actually create/edit) those policies in the supabase dashboard:
Note: no delete for now - so I've kept it out of the policies - but it would be the same, only owners can delete.
NextJs setup
Lets get rid of the default page in the pages folder and replace the index.tsx with the following:
import Head from 'next/head';
const Home = () => {
return (
<>
<Head>
<title>Posts list</title>
<meta name="description" content="Blog made with NextJs and Supabase" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
</Head>
<main>{/* Our components will go here */}</main>
</>
);
};
export default Home;
As a reminder, the pages folder is a special directory in a Next.js project that contains the pages of your application. When you create a new file in this folder, Next.js automatically generates a route for it based on the file name. For example, the index.js in the pages folder, it will be mapped to the root URL of your application.
For our application, we will have the following pages:
-
/: the home page, which will list all the posts -
/posts/[id]: the post detail page -
/posts/new: the new post page
In terms of structure, our src folder will look like the following:
So to recap, we will have:
-
components: our React components -
hooks: our custom hooks for getting/setting data from supabase -
pages: our Next.js pages -
styles: for some custom styling -
types: for our database types
Everything is now ready, lets jump on the UI!
Top comments (2)
I'm trying this out...so, here's my feedback. It looks like this is a local development setup. So for the URL and key -
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_KEY=
...should I use the API URL and ANON key that is displayed in the console after doing npx supabase start?
If so, then I think I get things and am ready for the database. For postgresql, what version is recommended?
I suppose it's recommended to get the latest postgresql from postgresql.org/download/ as the apt-get version is probably not current with the bleedinding edge.
Looks like fun...almost there.
But one thing I don't like is "npx supabase start" setting up docker and grabbing 439M of disk space. I think it's better to go native! Show it. Don't do docker if it's crazy in terms of disk size. That's like old Microsoft crap...forget it!