Installation

Get RankThis up and running in your local development environment.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following installed:

• Node.js (18.0 or later)
• pnpm (recommended) or npm
• PostgreSQL database (local or hosted)
• Git for cloning the repository

Quick Start

1. Clone and Install

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-username/rankthis.git
cd rankthis

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Copy environment template
cp .env.example .env

2. Environment Setup

Configure your .env file with the minimum required variables:

.env

# Database Configuration
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://username:password@localhost:5432/rankthis"

# Authentication
AUTH_SECRET="your-generated-secret-key"
AUTH_GOOGLE_ID="your-google-client-id"
AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET="your-google-client-secret"

# Email Service
AUTH_RESEND_KEY="re_your-resend-api-key"

# Stripe (for payments)
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY="sk_test_..."
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET="whsec_..."

# Client-side variables
NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY="pk_test_..."

# Cron jobs security
CRON_SECRET="your-cron-secret"

🔑 Generate AUTH_SECRET

Run this command to generate a secure secret:

openssl rand -base64 32

3. Database Setup

Initialize your database with Prisma:

# Generate Prisma client
pnpm db:generate

# Run database migrations
pnpm db:migrate

# Optional: Seed the database
pnpm db:seed

4. Start Development Server

# Start the development server
pnpm dev

Visit http://localhost:3000 to see your application running!

Advanced Configuration

Complete Environment Variables

For full functionality, configure these additional variables:

.env

 1# Database Configuration
 2DATABASE_URL="postgresql://username:password@localhost:5432/rankthis"
 3
 4# Authentication
 5AUTH_SECRET="your-generated-secret-key"
 6AUTH_GOOGLE_ID="your-google-client-id"
 7AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET="your-google-client-secret"
 8
 9# Email Service
10AUTH_RESEND_KEY="re_your-resend-api-key"
11
12# Stripe Configuration
13STRIPE_SECRET_KEY="sk_test_..."
14STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET="whsec_..."
15
16# Stripe Price IDs (Tiered Subscriptions)
17STRIPE_PRICE_PRO_MONTHLY="price_..."
18STRIPE_PRICE_PRO_YEARLY="price_..."
19STRIPE_PRICE_ULTRA_MONTHLY="price_..."
20STRIPE_PRICE_ULTRA_YEARLY="price_..."
21
22# Client-side variables
23NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY="pk_test_..."
24NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY="phc_..."
25NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST="https://eu.i.posthog.com"
26
27# Analytics (optional)
28POSTHOG_HOST="https://eu.i.posthog.com"
29
30# Security
31CRON_SECRET="your-cron-secret"

✅ Verify Installation

Check that everything is working correctly:

• ✅ Development server starts without errors
• ✅ Database connection successful
• ✅ Authentication works (sign in/out)
• ✅ No console errors in browser

Installation Complete!

Your development environment is ready. Next, configure your services.

Configure Services →Setup Authentication