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Version: 2.x

🛠️ Creating a Full-Stack Project

To simplify the process of building our full-stack Todo app, we'll recreate the project from scratch using the create-t3-app scaffolding tool - saving us a lot of time manually integrating different tools and libraries. We'll reuse the ZModel schema we built in Part I.

ZenStack is framework-agnostic

For ease of demonstration, we'll use the Next.js framework for full-stack development. However, ZenStack is framework-agnostic. Most of the content apply to other choices, including full-stack ones like like Nuxt and SvelteKit, or SPA + backend frameworks like Express, Fastify, NestJS.

1. Creating the Project

Create a new Next.js project using create-t3-app:

npx create-t3-app@latest --tailwind --nextAuth --prisma --appRouter --CI my-todo-app

It sets up a project with the following features:

We'll also use "daisyUI" for UI components. Run the following command to install it:

npm i -D daisyui@latest

Then add the "daisyui" plugin to tailwind.config.ts:

module.exports = {
//...
plugins: [require("daisyui")],
}

Finally, add some utility packages we'll use later:

npm install nanoid

2. Setting Up ZenStack

Initialize the project for ZenStack:

npx zenstack@latest init

Besides installing dependencies, the command also copies the prisma/schema.prisma file to schema.zmodel. We're going to continue using the ZModel we've developed in the previous part, but with a few tweaks:

  1. All "id" fields are changed to String type (as required by NextAuth).
  2. The "markdown" and "openapi" plugins are removed (not needed for this part).

You can also find the updated version here: https://github.com/zenstackhq/the-complete-guide-sample/blob/part4-start/schema.zmodel. Replace the schema.zmodel file in your project with it.

Run generation and push the schema to the database:

npx zenstack generate && npx prisma db push
tip

If you ran into any trouble creating the project, you can also use the "part4-start" branch of https://github.com/zenstackhq/the-complete-guide-sample as the starting point and continue from there.

3. Implementing Authentication

3.1 NextAuth Session Provider

To use NextAuth, we'll need to install a session provider at the root of our app. First, create a file src/components/SessionProvider.tsx with the following content:

src/components/SessionProvider.tsx
'use client';

import { SessionProvider } from 'next-auth/react';
import React from 'react';

type Props = {
children: React.ReactNode;
};
function NextAuthSessionProvider({ children }: Props) {
return <SessionProvider>{children}</SessionProvider>;
}

export default NextAuthSessionProvider;

Then, update the src/app/layout.tsx file to use it

src/app/layout.tsx
import NextAuthSessionProvider from '~/components/SessionProvider';

export default function RootLayout({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
return (
<html lang="en">
<body className={`font-sans ${inter.variable}`}>
<NextAuthSessionProvider>{children}</NextAuthSessionProvider>
</body>
</html>
);
}

3.2 Credential-Based Auth

The default project created by create-t3-app uses Discord OAuth for authentication. We'll replace it with credential-based authentication for simplicity.

Replace the content of /src/server/auth.ts with the following:

/src/server/auth.ts
import { PrismaAdapter } from '@next-auth/prisma-adapter';
import type { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';
import { compare } from 'bcryptjs';
import NextAuth, { type DefaultSession, type NextAuthOptions } from 'next-auth';
import CredentialsProvider from 'next-auth/providers/credentials';
import { db } from './db';

declare module 'next-auth' {
interface Session extends DefaultSession {
user: {
id: string;
} & DefaultSession['user'];
}
}

export const authOptions: NextAuthOptions = {
session: {
strategy: 'jwt',
},
// Include user.id on session
callbacks: {
session({ session, token }) {
if (session.user) {
session.user.id = token.sub!;
}
return session;
},
},
// Configure one or more authentication providers
adapter: PrismaAdapter(db),
providers: [
CredentialsProvider({
credentials: {
email: { type: 'email' },
password: { type: 'password' },
},
authorize: authorize(db),
}),
],
};

function authorize(prisma: PrismaClient) {
return async (credentials: Record<'email' | 'password', string> | undefined) => {
if (!credentials?.email) throw new Error('"email" is required in credentials');
if (!credentials?.password) throw new Error('"password" is required in credentials');

const maybeUser = await prisma.user.findFirst({
where: { email: credentials.email },
select: { id: true, email: true, password: true },
});
if (!maybeUser?.password) return null;

// verify the input password with stored hash
const isValid = await compare(credentials.password, maybeUser.password);
if (!isValid) return null;

return { id: maybeUser.id, email: maybeUser.email };
};
}

export default NextAuth(authOptions);

Remove code related to DISCORD_CLIENT_ID and DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET from /src/env.js, and update the .env file under project root to the following:

.env
DATABASE_URL="file:./db.sqlite"
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="abc123"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"
info

You should use a strong NEXTAUTH_SECRET in a real application.

4. Mounting the CRUD API

ZenStack uses server adapters to mount CRUD APIs to frameworks, and it has several pre-built adapters for popular frameworks - one of which is Next.js. First, install the server adapter package:

npm install @zenstackhq/server

Then, create a file src/app/api/model/[...path]/route.ts with the following content:

src/app/api/model/[...path]/route.ts
import { enhance } from '@zenstackhq/runtime';
import { NextRequestHandler } from '@zenstackhq/server/next';
import { getServerSession } from 'next-auth';
import { authOptions } from '~/server/auth';
import { db } from '~/server/db';

async function getPrisma() {
const session = await getServerSession(authOptions);
const user = session ? { id: session.user.id } : undefined;
return enhance(db, { user });
}

const handler = NextRequestHandler({ getPrisma, useAppDir: true });

export { handler as DELETE, handler as GET, handler as PATCH, handler as POST, handler as PUT };
info

The crucial part is that we use an enhanced PrismaClient with the server adapter, so all API calls are automatically subject to the access policies defined in the ZModel schema.

In the next chapter, we'll learn how to use a plugin to generate frontend data query hooks that help us consume it.

5. Compile the Project

Compile the project and see if everything is working correctly:

npm run build
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