Welcome to NOW.TS directory.

Setup the project

Please follow the NOW.TS Course to setup the project.

Environment Variables Setup

Before running the application, you'll need to configure several environment variables. Copy the .env-template file to .env and fill in the required values:

cp .env-template .env

Database

You can install Postgres (MacOS) or Postgres (Windows) to have a local database.

Launch the application, then configure your database URL:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://NAME:@localhost:5432/PROJECT_NAME"

To find your NAME:

# MacOS/Linux
whoami

# Windows
echo %username%

For PROJECT_NAME, choose any name you want - we recommend using the same name as your application.

Redis (Required)

Redis is required for caching and provides ~90% performance improvement.

Option 1: Local Redis Installation

macOS (using Homebrew):

# Install Redis
brew install redis

# Start Redis server
brew services start redis

# Or run manually
redis-server

See the official macOS installation guide for more details.

Windows:

Download and install Redis from the official Windows guide.

Linux:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install redis-server

# Start Redis
sudo systemctl start redis-server

After installation, add to your .env:

REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379

Option 2: Docker (Quick Setup)

# Start Redis with Docker
docker run -d -p 6379:6379 redis:alpine

# Add to .env
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379

Option 3: Redis Cloud Services (Recommended for Production)

For production deployments, we recommend using a managed Redis service:

Upstash (Serverless Redis):

• Free tier: 10,000 commands/day
• Serverless with pay-per-use pricing
• Sign up at console.upstash.com
• Copy your Redis URL and add to .env

Redis Cloud (Official Redis):

• Free tier: 30MB RAM
• Managed by Redis Labs
• Sign up at redis.com/try-free
• Get your connection URL from the dashboard

Railway:

• $5/month for 512MB RAM
• Simple setup and deployment
• Go to railway.app and deploy Redis

For detailed setup instructions for each provider, see the Redis Setup Guide.

Better-Auth

For Better-Auth, we recommend starting with the GitHub provider. You can add more providers later.

By default, the template also includes Magic Link (requires Resend setup) and email/password authentication.

You'll need a GITHUB_CLIENT_ID and GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET from GitHub Developer Settings.

Configure these settings:

• Authorization callback URL: http://localhost:3000/api/auth/callback/github
• Homepage URL: http://localhost:3000

Then add to your .env:

GITHUB_CLIENT_ID="YOUR_GITHUB_ID"
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET="YOUR_GITHUB_SECRET"

Generate a BETTER_AUTH_SECRET:

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64'))"

Copy the result and add it to your .env:

BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="YOUR_SECRET"

Resend

Create a Resend account and create an API key. You'll also need to configure a domain - either your application's domain or any domain you own.

• Tutorial for Resend API keys
• Tutorial for Resend domains

Add the API key to your .env:

RESEND_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
EMAIL_FROM="contact@yourdomain.com"
NEXT_PUBLIC_EMAIL_CONTACT="your@email.com"

Resend Audience (Optional)

An audience allows you to send marketing emails to your users (e.g., product launch announcements, promotions).

The application works without an audience, but it's useful for sending bulk emails to your user base.

To create an audience:

1. Go to Resend Audiences
2. Create a new audience
3. Copy the audience ID and add it to your .env:

RESEND_AUDIENCE_ID="YOUR_AUDIENCE_ID"

Stripe

If you don't have a Stripe account yet, create one.

Follow this documentation to get your test API keys.

Add them to your .env:

STRIPE_SECRET_KEY="sk_test_..."
NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY="pk_test_..."

Stripe Webhooks

For webhooks, first login to Stripe CLI:

stripe login

Then run the webhook listener:

pnpm run stripe-webhooks

Copy the webhook secret from the output and add it to your .env:

STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET="whsec_..."

Note: Each time you want to use webhooks during development, you'll need to run pnpm stripe-webhooks to forward Stripe events to your local application. The webhook secret remains the same.

Uploadthing

Uploadthing is a SaaS for managing images in your application.

Go to your Uploadthing dashboard and get a token:

UPLOADTHING_TOKEN='YOUR_TOKEN'

Starting the Application

Once all environment variables are configured, install dependencies and start the development server:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

Test that everything works by:

• Logging in with GitHub
• Creating an account
• Verifying emails are sent
• Testing other features

Caching

NOW.TS uses Redis caching to provide exceptional performance, reducing database queries by ~90% and middleware execution time from ~200-500ms to <20ms.

Why Redis is Required

Without caching:

• Every page navigation hits the database 2-3 times
• Middleware validates sessions and organization membership repeatedly
• External Stripe API calls on every page load
• Slow response times and high database load

With Redis caching:

• 80-95% of requests served from cache
• Session validation cached for 5 minutes
• Organization lookups cached for 5 minutes
• Stripe subscription data cached for 1 hour
• ~90% performance improvement

Quick Setup

For local development:

# Start Redis with Docker
docker run -d -p 6379:6379 redis:alpine

# Add to .env.local
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379

For production (recommended providers):

• Railway: $5/month - Setup Guide
• Redis Cloud: Free tier available - Setup Guide
• Upstash: Pay-per-use - Setup Guide

See docs/redis-setup.md for complete setup instructions.

What's Cached

• Session validation (5 min TTL) - Better Auth cookie caching + Redis
• Organization membership (5 min TTL) - Middleware checks
• User's organizations (10 min TTL) - Organization list
• Stripe subscriptions (1 hour TTL) - Billing data

Cache Invalidation

Caches are automatically invalidated when:

• User updates their profile
• Organization settings change
• Membership changes (add/remove members)
• Subscription updates via Stripe webhooks

Performance Impact

Real-world metrics:

• Middleware execution: ~200-500ms → <20ms (~90% faster)
• Database queries per request: 2-3 → ~0.2 (90% reduction)
• Cache hit rate: 80-95% after warmup
• Page load improvement: 30-50% faster overall

Contributions

Feel free to create a pull request with any changes you think valuable