web-repository-opinions

name	web-repository-opinions
description	Opinionated defaults and standards for building TypeScript web products and web-technology repos, covering monorepo layout, rendering, surfaces, routing, IDs, key generation, domains, origins, env contracts, branches, deployment, DNS, auth, data ownership, media, jobs, AI model routing, billing, admin, responsive layout, fonts, product UX, and release operating philosophy. Load this skill early and keep it loaded for any web work: whenever planning, deciding, designing, scaffolding, auditing, naming, reviewing, or implementing anything in a web app, marketing site, signed-in app, SaaS, extension, desktop, or mobile surface built with HTML, CSS, JS, or TS. This includes backend-only web product pieces, such as an API route, a reactive backend function, or a webhook handler, since env contracts, auth, data ownership, and deployment are opinions this skill holds regardless of whether a given file renders UI. When unsure whether it applies, load it. Almost every decision in a web repo touches an opinion it holds.
metadata	{"author":"Leeor Nahum","version":"1.24.0"}

Web Repository Opinions

A web product is more than its Git repo. The real product is code plus database, backend functions, object storage, provider dashboards, environment variables, webhooks, scheduled jobs, deployed app settings, and DNS. Keep those layers explicit so the product can build, deploy, and ship without hidden coupling.

Build around the thing the user came to do. A product should feel like its core workflow, not a generic dashboard with feature panels attached.

These are opinionated defaults, not a single product spec. Apply what fits the repo. The named tools below are swappable defaults. The paradigms around them are not.

Default Stack

Prefer these unless the product has a stronger reason not to. Swap the tool, keep the paradigm.

• Monorepo: Turborepo with pnpm workspaces
• Framework: Next.js App Router with TypeScript
• Styling: Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, lucide-react
• App data and live sync: Convex
• Auth: Clerk
• Billing: Stripe
• Heavy media bytes: Cloudflare R2
• Hosting: Vercel
• DNS: Cloudflare
• Transactional email: Resend
• Rich text: BlockNote or equivalent block JSON
• LLM calls: Vercel AI SDK over OpenRouter (production model pools are product-specific)

Reference Loading

This skill's substance lives in its references. The map below only points to them, so consult the skill for decisions and not just implementation. Before acting on any topic, read every reference that could touch it, in full, including the ones that seem only adjacent, and read deeply rather than skim. Bias hard toward loading: if a reference might cover what you are about to plan, decide, name, review, or build, read it rather than guess. Loading more references, and reading each completely, is cheap. Acting on a topic blind, or on a half-read reference, is not. Re-read the owning reference whenever a decision in its area comes back up.

Architecture:

• Read references/stack.md when choosing or swapping tech building blocks.
• Read AI model routing guidance when a product calls LLMs, chooses production models or providers, designs model fallback, or accounts for model cost.
• Read references/monorepo-layout.md when creating or reorganizing apps and packages.
• Read references/naming.md when naming folders, packages, slugs, surfaces, or workspace imports.
• Read references/modularity.md when designing how systems connect, naming integration boundaries, or keeping flows swappable.

Rendering and feel:

• Read references/rendering.md when choosing server rendering, static generation, or client rendering for a surface.
• Read references/spa-feel.md when making a signed-in app feel app-like while keeping stable URLs.
• Read references/loading-states.md when designing skeletons, boot sequences, splash screens, or a dispatcher route that forwards into the product.

Surfaces:

• Read references/marketing-site.md when building the public site.
• Read references/app-surface.md when building the signed-in product.
• Read references/seo.md when handling SEO for public pages.
• Read references/public-discovery.md when exposing public pages to crawlers, sitemaps, scrapers, and no-JavaScript verification.
• Read references/legal-pages.md when adding privacy, terms, or other trust pages required by providers.

Identity and URLs:

• Read references/routing.md when designing route paths.
• Read references/query-state.md when URL-addressing search, filters, sorting, views, pagination, or explicitly selected defaults.
• Read references/ids.md when choosing URL identifiers for resources.
• Read references/domains.md when laying out apex, subdomains, and the canonical host.
• Read references/origins.md when generating links or callbacks across apps and stages.
• Read references/public-interfaces.md when designing public APIs, MCP servers, Agent Skill adapters, OpenAPI contracts, protocol subdomains, CORS, caching, or rate limits.

Runtime and environment:

• Read references/environment.md when creating, auditing, or repairing env files and provider env separation.
• Read references/branches.md when mapping branches to deployment stages and provider credential tiers.
• Read references/deployment.md when configuring which branches deploy and how hosting is wired.
• Read references/dns.md when creating DNS records, proxy settings, or record comments.

Auth and data:

• Read references/auth.md when wiring authentication and social sign-in posture.
• Read references/workspace-tenancy.md when backing workspaces with the auth provider's organizations, shaping the home workspace, selecting a workspace over OAuth, or migrating existing workspaces onto organizations.
• Read references/bootstrap.md when ensuring user, workspace, and membership exist on authenticated entry.
• Read references/data-model.md when modeling entities, names, and value precedence.
• Read references/source-of-truth.md when deciding which system owns which fact.
• Read references/live-data.md when wiring a reactive backend so the UI updates live.
• Read references/search-indexing.md when defining searchable fields, indexing fetched data, or running search migrations.
• Read references/external-sources.md when importing, canonicalizing, checking, or recovering provider-owned resources.
• Read references/integration-onboarding.md when a user connects their own external system through the product UI.

Media and jobs:

• Read references/object-storage.md when storing large files.
• Read references/uploads.md when moving bytes from the browser to storage.
• Read references/background-jobs.md when running provider-backed or long-running work.
• Read references/bulk-actions.md when one user action processes multiple independent items or supports partial success.
• Read references/data-deletion.md when one deletion operation must remove a dependent data graph across bounded steps.
• Read references/quota.md when charging usage against limits.
• Read references/failure-and-retries.md when handling failed work and retry behavior.

Money and admin:

• Read references/billing.md when implementing plans, subscriptions, and usage limits.
• Read references/admin.md when adding internal admin surfaces and gates.

Frontend and UI:

• Read references/responsive-layout.md when building or reviewing any layout across viewports.
• Read references/font-loading.md when choosing or loading fonts.
• Read references/product-ux.md when shaping the primary path, states, and product-native language.
• Read references/path-display.md when showing file paths, directory listings, breadcrumbs, or a browsable tree's root.
• Read references/interaction-feedback.md when coordinating action states, selection surfaces, bulk feedback, or global search shortcuts.
• Read references/user-facing-errors.md when presenting failures from providers, frameworks, backend functions, validation, or unexpected exceptions.
• Read references/design-tokens.md when defining a design token layer.
• Read references/social-metadata.md when adding icons, favicons, and social embed metadata.

Operating philosophy:

• Read references/provider-setup.md when configuring OAuth, webhooks, CORS, or allowed origins.
• Read references/runtime-truth.md when deciding whether a change is actually complete.
• Read references/promotion.md when promoting work between deployment stages.
• Read references/definition-of-done.md before implementing or reviewing a shippable feature. Use its verification categories to identify every other reference the work must load.
• Read references/versioning.md when bumping versions or keeping version mentions in sync.
• Read references/cleanup.md when removing dead flows, stale docs, or temporary artifacts.

Core Non-Negotiables

• The product feels like its core object first. Secondary features attach to it.
• Every view is URL-addressable so any state can be linked, shared, and restored.
• One canonical route model per concept. Do not keep long and short versions alive at once.
• Short, stable, non-sensitive IDs in private URLs. Never slugs for private, renameable objects.
• Split the public site from the signed-in app by audience and runtime posture.
• Name and isolate integrations by role so any single system can be swapped without rewriting callers.
• Build product capabilities with product-shaped inputs and outputs so UI, API, MCP, jobs, and webhooks can compose them without owning their rules.
• Enforce authorization once at the boundary every client crosses, capability-granular.
• Heavy bytes live in object storage. The database owns metadata and live state.
• A reactive backend is wired end to end so the UI updates live, not by manual refetch.
• One durable owner per fact. User-edited values outrank generated values, and generated values outrank defaults.
• Compatibility requires an explicit supported contract. Current intended behavior replaces unreleased mistakes.
• Env holds secrets and true environment variance. Product decisions live in code.
• Same env key names across stages. Values change by store, not the key.
• Branches are deployment roles: dev is local, preview is hosted staging on dev resources, main is production.
• Charge quota before expensive work. Expensive jobs retry only on user action. Failed states must be actionable.
• User-facing failures use product-owned copy. Raw exception, provider, framework, request, and stack details stay internal.
• A change is done when the runtime it depends on is true, not when TypeScript compiles.

Web Repository Audit

When invoked to audit a web repo:

1. Classify public versus signed-in surfaces and whether their rendering posture matches.
2. Inspect URL IDs, route paths, query-state restoration, and link stability across reorganization.
3. Check auth bootstrap, workspace creation, and permission-gated UI that hides unavailable actions.
4. Confirm per-runtime env contracts, no root env clutter, and same key names across stages.
5. Check ownership boundaries, external sources, search scope, media storage, and bounded data work.
6. Verify user-facing failures, partial results, feedback, and responsive interaction states remain coherent.
7. Confirm branch-to-stage mapping, deploy gating, migrations, webhooks, DNS records, and provider setup are documented near the runtime contract.
8. Report mismatches by category and file area, never by leaking secret values or one-off product names.

Several references end with an "Ask before" line for their riskiest changes, such as production domains, DNS, credentials, billing mode, public sharing, and provider resources. Honor those where the topic lives.