Production-Ready, Monorepo-first Next.js Boilerplate

Next-forge is an open-source, production-grade, monorepo-first, full-stack Next.js template developed by Vercel.

This boilerplate is engineered and documented to cover a wide range of functionalities, including authentication, database and ORM, payments, documentation, a blog, observability, analytics, emails, and even feature flags and dark mode.

GitHub Repo

DOCs

Features

🏗️ Monorepo Architecture – Turborepo-powered workspace with multiple interconnected applications

🔐 Authentication Ready – Pre-integrated Clerk authentication with user management

💳 Payment Processing – Stripe integration with webhook handling for subscription and one-time payments

📊 Database & ORM – Prisma ORM with Neon PostgreSQL database configuration

📧 Email Templates – React-based email system powered by Resend for transactional emails

📱 Responsive UI – shadcn/ui components with Tailwind CSS styling

📖 Documentation Site – Mintlify-powered docs that auto-generate from markdown files

🌙 Dark Mode – Theme switching with next-themes integration

📈 Analytics & Monitoring – Google Analytics, PostHog, Sentry, and BetterStack integrations

🛡️ Security – Arcjet protection for application security

🌐 SEO Optimized – Type-safe blog and marketing pages with BaseHub CMS

🔧 Developer Tools – Prisma Studio for database visualization and management

🚀 Feature Flags – Built-in feature flag system for controlled rollouts

⚡ Type Safety – End-to-end TypeScript with environment variable validation

🎨 Component Library – Built-in Storybook for isolated component development and testing

Example App

Use Cases

SaaS Applications – Build subscription-based software with user authentication, payment processing, and feature management out of the box
E-commerce Platforms – Create online stores with product catalogs, payment processing, and customer management systems
Corporate Websites – Develop marketing sites with integrated blogs, documentation, and lead capture forms
API-First Applications – Build applications that require separate frontend and backend services with shared components
Content Management Systems – Create platforms for managing and publishing content with type-safe CMS integration

Installation

Prerequisites

Operating System: macOS, Linux (Ubuntu recommended), or Windows.
Package Manager: pnpm is the default, but npm, yarn, or bun are also supported.
Stripe CLI: Required for forwarding payment webhooks.
Mintlify CLI: Used for previewing documentation locally.
SaaS Accounts: You will need to create accounts for services like Arjet, BetterStack, Clerk, Google Analytics, Posthog, Resend, Sentry, and Stripe.

Initialization

This will create a new project directory, clone the repository, and run a setup script to install dependencies and copy environment variable files.

npx next-forge@latest init

Database Setup

npm run migrate

CMS Configuration

Configure the BaseHub CMS by:

Forking the basehub/next-forge template
Getting your Read Token from the “Connect to Your App” page
Adding the BASEHUB_TOKEN to your environment variables

Usage

1. Start the development environment with all applications running simultaneously:

npm run dev

This launches multiple services on different ports:

http://localhost:3000/ – Main application
http://localhost:3001/ – Marketing website
http://localhost:3002/ – API service
http://localhost:3003/ – Email preview server
http://localhost:3004/ – Documentation site

2. next-forge uses a type-safe environment variable system. Each package defines its variables in a keys.ts file, which gets composed into the main application’s env.ts file.

app/.env.local - Main app variables
web/.env.local - Website variables
api/.env.local - API variables
packages/database/.env - Database configuration

Related Resources

Turborepo – Monorepo build system that powers next-forge’s architecture
shadcn/ui – Component library used throughout the template for consistent UI
T3 Stack – Alternative full-stack TypeScript template with different tooling choices
Vercel Templates – Collection of production-ready templates for various frameworks

FAQs

Q: Why doesn’t next-forge use tRPC for API communication?
A: next-forge uses Next.js Server Actions instead of tRPC because they provide similar type safety benefits with tighter framework integration. Server Actions are part of Next.js itself, which means better optimization and continued feature improvements directly from the framework team.

Q: Why are there suppressHydrationWarning attributes on HTML tags?
A: This follows the next-themes recommendation to suppress warnings that occur when determining the theme on the client side during hydration.

Q: Do I need all the included SaaS integrations to use next-forge?
A: No, you can use next-forge without all the integrations. However, you’ll need to remove or replace the relevant code for services you don’t plan to use, such as Stripe for payments or Clerk for authentication.

Q: Is next-forge suitable for small projects?
A: next-forge is designed for production applications and includes many features that might be overkill for simple projects. Consider whether you need all the included functionality before choosing this template for smaller applications.