Systems Notes

A minimal dark-theme blog in Next.js with:

• a public /blog endpoint
• a private /dashboard endpoint for writing posts
• Neon Postgres storage for posts and subscribers
• Cloudinary image uploads for cover and inline blog images
• Vercel-friendly deployment flow

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Copy .env.example to .env.local and fill in:

• DATABASE_URL
• ADMIN_EMAIL
• ADMIN_PASSWORD
• AUTH_SECRET
• CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME
• CLOUDINARY_API_KEY
• CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET
• CLOUDINARY_FOLDER

3. Create a Cloudinary account:

• create a free Cloudinary account
• copy your cloud name, API key, and API secret from the Cloudinary dashboard
• optionally choose a folder name like systems-notes for uploaded blog images

4. Start the app:

npm run dev

5. Open:

• http://localhost:3000/blog
• http://localhost:3000/dashboard

Vercel Deploy

1. Push this repo to GitHub.
2. Import the repo into Vercel.
3. Add the same values from .env.local into the Vercel project environment variables.
4. Redeploy after any env var change.

Notes

• The dashboard is protected by a cookie-backed login using your ADMIN_EMAIL and ADMIN_PASSWORD.
• Uploaded images are stored in Cloudinary and inserted into posts as public URLs.
• The database tables auto-create on first access, but the SQL is also included in sql/schema.sql.
• For Vercel deployment, set the same env vars in your Vercel project settings and redeploy.
• See DEPLOY_VERCEL.md for the quick deploy path.