Speed build template

Context

I need a quick way to setup businesses, particularly software-as-a-service (SaaS).

My last speed build took 57 hours to build. A lot of that are stock-standard components that should be reusable (e.g. 11 hours spent on authentication, 4 hours spent on payment integration).

I have tried a few frameworks (Firebase, Amplify), but they eventually let me down when I want to implement a feature they do not support. I am not a fan of many frameworks. They add a level of abstraction that:

1. Require learning something new
2. Impose restrictions, eventually
3. Add complexity in maintenance

Instead, I like templates. So the aim here is to create a simple SaaS repository that I can clone anytime I start a new speed build.

Requirements:

A basic app that allows users to create an account and increment their counter. The counter will only be allowed to exceed 5 if the user pays a monthly subscription fee.

The app will have:

• Multiple environments
  • Local development environment
  • Production environment
• Web UI
  • Simple landing page
  • Basic app
• Basic database
• Authentication and authorisation
• Payment
• Version control
• Testing

Out-of-scope:

• Real-time updates (e.g. websockets)

Summary

Stack:

• Backend
  • Compute
    • AWS: Lambda (written in Go v1.17)
    • AWS: API Gateway (v2/HTTP)
  • Database
    • AWS: DynamoDB
  • User identity
    • AWS: Cognito
  • Payments
    • Stripe (checkout)
  • Tooling
    • Serverless v2.57
• Frontend
  • Landing page
    • Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS
  • App
    • Vue v3.2, Vue-router v4.0, Vuex v4.0
    • Tailwind v2.2, DaisyUI v1.16
  • Tooling
    • Vite v2.1
    • TypeScript v4.4
• Tooling
  • GitHub

Guide

1. Buy a domain, e.g. from Namecheap

2. Create a free email account on Gmail

3. Create a new AWS root account

4. Create a new AWS IAM user

5. Then create a profile in .aws/credentials

6. Update .env to include profile name

7. Setup a Hosted Zone in AWS’ Route53

8. Set domain’s nameservers to AWS on Namecheap

9. (Optional) Set up a mail server with Zoho

10. Create an S3 bucket and configure as a website (see script)

11. Create a Stripe account and a subscription product

12. Jump through hoops to deploy:

    1. Deploy to production

    make deploy STAGE=${STAGE}
    

    1. Create a Stripe webhook with customer.subscription.created and customer.subscription.deleted events sent to the appropriate API address (e.g. https://{api-id}.execute-api.{region}.amazonaws.com/subscription/webhook)
    2. Update .env.production with the output from the previous command and the Signing secret from the Stripe webhook (e.g. whsec_abc123)
    3. Reploy backend to production, build frontend, and then deploy frontend to bucket created above

    make deploy STAGE=production
    make buildfront
    make deployfront AWS_PROFILE={profile} BUCKETNAME={bucketname}
    

    The site should be available at http://{bucketname}.s3-website.{region}.amazonaws.com

13. Create a cloudfront distribution to direct requests to the domain to the S3 bucket