Cloud Stack for AI Apps — Mastery8 / 8
Shipping in Days — The Wiring Playbook
The whole stack assembled into a build order: from empty repo to a paid, emailing, AI-powered product in a working week.
Here is the whole stack as a build order — the sequence that takes you from empty repo to a paid, emailing, AI-powered product in a working week.
The order
- Day 1 — App shell. Next.js on Vercel, deploys on push. Get a preview URL live before anything else.
- Day 1–2 — Data + auth. Supabase project, schema, RLS policies, sign-in. Now you have users and somewhere to put their data.
- Day 2–3 — The AI core. The actual feature: LLM calls, streaming, and (if RAG) pgvector retrieval. This is your product — give it the most time.
- Day 3–4 — Payments. Stripe Checkout + the webhook that grants access. Build and test entirely in test mode.
- Day 4 — Email. Resend with domain auth; the receipt/welcome fired from the webhook.
- Day 5 — Config + launch checklist. Per-environment keys, secrets audit, and the list below.
Defer without guilt
AWS, advanced analytics, a custom admin panel, multi-region — all of it waits until a real user or constraint demands it. Shipping beats architecting.
Launch checklist
- Stripe in live mode, webhook signature verified, access granted server-side.
- SPF/DKIM/DMARC on the sending domain; a real test purchase received the email.
- No secret in the client bundle; prod env vars set on Vercel.
- RLS policies tested with a non-owner account.
- Error monitoring on; p95 latency acceptable on the AI path.
Series — Cloud Stack for AI Apps — Mastery
- Part 01The Opinionated AI Product StackChoosing infrastructure is where weeks vanish. Here is a default stack that lets a small team ship an AI product in days — and when to deviate.
- Part 02Next.js on Vercel — The App LayerOne framework for UI, API and server rendering; one platform that deploys on git push. The app layer should be the part you never think about.
- Part 03Supabase — Postgres, Auth & Storage in OneReal Postgres, auth, file storage and pgvector behind one SDK. For an AI product, having your data and your vectors in the same database is a quiet superpower.
- Part 04Stripe — Payments & SubscriptionsCharging money is a solved problem — if you let Stripe solve it. Checkout, subscriptions, and the webhook that is the real source of truth.
- Part 05Resend — Transactional Email That LandsThe receipt, the download link, the password reset — if they hit spam, your product feels broken. Deliverability is a feature.
- Part 06AWS — When You Outgrow the Managed PathThe managed stack covers 90% of an AI product. AWS is the escape hatch for the other 10% — long jobs, GPU inference, large files. Use it surgically.
- Part 07Secrets, Env & Config Across EnvironmentsFive services, three environments, one leaked key away from a bad week. Config discipline is unglamorous and non-negotiable.
- Part 08Shipping in Days — The Wiring Playbook — you are hereThe whole stack assembled into a build order: from empty repo to a paid, emailing, AI-powered product in a working week.