Development Setup

Complete guide to the AInstein monorepo structure, development environment, and tooling.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the AInstein monorepo architecture, development setup, and the tools we use to build a production-ready SaaS platform.

Project Structure

AInstein uses a monorepo managed by PNPM workspaces and Turborepo for efficient builds and dependency management. This structure promotes code reuse, type safety, and consistent development patterns across all applications.

Applications (`apps/`)

Our monorepo contains multiple specialized applications, each serving a specific purpose:

Core Applications

app (Port 3000): The main multi-tenant SaaS application
- Dashboard, content editor, settings management
- Real-time collaboration with Liveblocks
- Admin and reseller portals
- Organization-based multi-tenancy
web (Port 3001): Marketing website
- Public-facing landing pages
- Pricing, features, blog content
- MDX-powered content management
- Multi-language support (18+ languages)
api (Port 3002): Dedicated API server
- Webhook endpoints for Stripe, Clerk
- External API integrations
- Background job processing
- Health check endpoints

Supporting Applications

email (Port 3003): Email template development
- React Email templates
- Transactional email designs
- Preview and testing environment
docs (Port 3004): Developer documentation
- Built with Fumadocs
- API reference documentation
- Component documentation
- Integration guides
studio (Port 3005): Database management
- Prisma Studio interface
- Database exploration and editing
- Development data management
storybook (Port 6006): Component library
- Design system documentation
- Interactive component playground
- Visual testing environment

Packages (`packages/`)

Shared code and utilities are organized into reusable packages:

Core Infrastructure

@repo/auth: Clerk authentication wrapper with multi-tenant support
@repo/database: Prisma ORM configuration with Neon serverless PostgreSQL
@repo/design-system: Shadcn/ui components built on Radix UI primitives

AI & Collaboration

@repo/ai: Unified AI service integrations (OpenAI, Google AI)
@repo/collaboration: Liveblocks real-time collaboration infrastructure

External Services

@repo/payments: Stripe payment processing and subscription management
@repo/analytics: PostHog and Vercel Analytics integration
@repo/email: Resend email service configuration
@repo/storage: Vercel Blob storage for file uploads
@repo/cms: BaseHub headless CMS integration

Platform Features

@repo/notifications: Knock notification service
@repo/webhooks: Svix webhook management
@repo/feature-flags: Feature flag system
@repo/seo: SEO utilities and metadata generation
@repo/services: DataForSEO API integration

Development & Operations

@repo/observability: Sentry error tracking and monitoring
@repo/security: Arcjet security and rate limiting
@repo/rate-limit: API rate limiting utilities
@repo/internationalization: i18n with Languine
@repo/testing: Testing utilities and configurations

Configuration

@repo/next-config: Shared Next.js configurations
@repo/typescript-config: TypeScript configurations

Technology Stack

Frontend

React 19.1.0: Latest React with concurrent features
Next.js 15.3+: App Router with Turbopack support
TypeScript 5.8+: Full type safety across the monorepo
Tailwind CSS 4.1+: Utility-first CSS framework
Motion (Framer Motion): Animation library

Backend & Database

PostgreSQL: Primary relational database
Prisma 6.4+: Type-safe ORM with migrations
Neon: Serverless PostgreSQL hosting
Edge Runtime: Vercel Edge deployment support

Real-time Features

Liveblocks 3.0: Real-time collaboration infrastructure
Novel Editor: TipTap-based rich text editor with AI
WebRTC: Real-time cursors and presence

Development Tools

Turborepo: High-performance build system
PNPM: Fast, disk space efficient package manager
Biome: Code formatting and linting (extends Ultracite)
Vitest: Modern testing framework
T3 Env: Type-safe environment variables with Zod

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Node.js 20+
PNPM 8+
PostgreSQL (or Neon account)
Required API keys (see Environment Setup)

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ainstein.git
cd ainstein

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Set up environment variables:

cp .env.example .env.local

Run database migrations:

pnpm db:push

Running the Development Environment

Start all applications in development mode:

pnpm dev

Or run specific applications:

pnpm dev --filter=app     # Main application
pnpm dev --filter=web     # Marketing website
pnpm dev --filter=api     # API server
pnpm dev --filter=docs    # Documentation