Riqle

Riqle is a personal platform built to showcase technical capability and serve as a base for future projects. It includes commerce infrastructure, content management, and authentication—all implemented with production-grade standards. **Why It Exists:** Employers often ask for proof of execution. Rather than theoretical knowledge, Riqle demonstrates practical implementation of complex systems: payment processing, user authentication, database design, and modern deployment practices. **What It Includes:** - Commerce infrastructure with Stripe integration - Content management (blog, projects, portfolio) - Authentication and authorization (NextAuth) - RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) - PostgreSQL database with Prisma ORM - Full type safety across frontend and backend **Purpose:** Serves as both a functional platform and a technical portfolio piece showing end-to-end system design and implementation.

I built Riqle from scratch as a personal platform to demonstrate production-grade full-stack development and commerce infrastructure. As the sole developer, I owned: - System architecture and technical decisions - Full-stack implementation (Next.js, TypeScript, Prisma, tRPC) - Database schema design and migrations - Stripe payment integration - Authentication and authorization (NextAuth) - Deployment and infrastructure (Vercel, Neon PostgreSQL) - Test coverage and quality assurance This project serves dual purposes: a functional personal platform and a demonstration of my ability to build production-ready systems from scratch.

team size: solo project

**Technical Stack:** - **Frontend:** Next.js 15 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript - **Backend:** tRPC for type-safe APIs, Next.js API routes - **Database:** PostgreSQL (Neon), Prisma ORM - **Auth:** NextAuth.js with email and OAuth providers - **Payments:** Stripe integration (Checkout, Webhooks, Customer Portal) - **Deployment:** Vercel (frontend), Neon (database) - **Styling:** Tailwind CSS with custom design tokens **Architecture Decisions:** 1. **Type safety throughout:** TypeScript + Prisma + tRPC eliminates entire classes of bugs 2. **Server Components:** Leveraging Next.js 15 App Router for optimal performance 3. **Managed infrastructure:** Chose Vercel and Neon to focus on application logic 4. **Stripe for payments:** Production-ready payment processing without building from scratch **Implementation Highlights:** - Webhook handling with idempotency for reliable payment processing - RBAC system for granular permission control - Database schema designed for extensibility (posts, products, orders, entitlements) - Audit logging for compliance and debugging - Email integration for transactional messages **Constraints & Tradeoffs:** - Solo development required aggressive scope management - Chose managed services over self-hosted to minimize operational overhead - Accepted higher infrastructure costs for faster development velocity - Built on proven patterns (T3 Stack) rather than experimental approaches

**Shipped:** Riqle is fully deployed and functional at riqle.com. All core systems are operational: - Users can authenticate via email or OAuth - Stripe payment flow works end-to-end (checkout → webhook → entitlement) - Content management allows creating and publishing posts/projects - Database migrations tracked with Prisma Migrate - Production deployment with CI/CD via Vercel **Technical Validation:** - Type safety catches bugs at compile time - tRPC ensures client-server contract integrity - Stripe webhook processing is idempotent and reliable - Database schema supports complex commerce scenarios **Demonstrates:** - Ability to design and implement production-grade systems - Understanding of payment processing, security, and data integrity - Full-stack capability from database to UI - Infrastructure and deployment knowledge

**Key Learnings:** The T3 Stack proved to be an excellent foundation for solo full-stack development. The type safety from Prisma → tRPC → React reduces cognitive load significantly when working alone. **What I'd Do Differently:** - Start with a simpler database schema and evolve it. I over-engineered some relationships early that aren't yet needed. - Implement feature flags from day one to enable safer production rollouts. **Technical Insights:** - Server Components in Next.js 15 significantly improve performance but require careful thinking about client/server boundaries - Stripe webhooks require robust idempotency handling—learned this the hard way in testing - Prisma's type generation is powerful but migrations can be tricky with managed databases **Future Enhancements:** - Add comprehensive E2E test coverage (Playwright) - Implement proper monitoring and observability - Build admin dashboard for content management