Rettfram: legal documents at one honest price

A guided document builder for simple legal documents. Visitors answer one short question at a time, watch the document write itself in a live preview, and pay once per document only when they download the PDF. No subscription, no account.

The brand is Rettfram (rettframavtaler.no). NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_NAME overrides it, for example for a US deployment.

Markets

One deployment sells to one market, chosen with NEXT_PUBLIC_MARKET at build time:

• no (default): Norwegian site, prices in NOK, A4 PDFs, Norwegian terms with angrerett. Templates in src/content/nb-NO/: husleiekontrakt, fremleiekontrakt, kjøpekontrakt, gjeldsbrev, fullmakt, oppdragsavtale and taushetserklæring.
• us: English site, prices in USD, US Letter PDFs. Templates in src/content/en-US/: NDA, residential lease, bill of sale, service agreement, power of attorney, promissory note, sublease and roommate agreement.

Interface text lives in src/i18n/ (en.tsx, nb.tsx); the legal pages have a version per market (src/app/terms/no.tsx and us.tsx, and so on). The other market's templates stay in the code and in the tests, but are not published.

Run it

npm install
cp .env.example .env.local   # optional: add a Stripe test key
npm run dev                  # http://localhost:3000

Without STRIPE_SECRET_KEY the app runs in demo mode: the pay button skips checkout and goes straight to the download page, so every flow can be tried locally.

Deploy to Vercel

1. Go to vercel.com/new, import the legal-docs GitHub repository, and keep the default Next.js settings.
2. Add the environment variables from .env.example (at least NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPPORT_EMAIL, NEXT_PUBLIC_COMPANY_NAME, NEXT_PUBLIC_COMPANY_ADDRESS and STRIPE_SECRET_KEY).
3. Deploy, then add your domain under Project → Settings → Domains and update NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL to match.

Every push to main redeploys automatically.

Tests

npm run lint && npm run typecheck   # static checks
npm test                            # unit tests: every template, PDF output, payment checks
npm run build && npm run test:e2e   # browser tests (desktop + mobile) against the production build

The template tests answer every question with every option and fail if any blank is left in the document, if a template refers to a field that doesn't exist, or if the PDF breaks. CI runs all of this on every push (.github/workflows/ci.yml).

Analytics

Set NEXT_PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN to turn on cookie-free Plausible analytics. The app sends these events (never any document answers): Document started, Step completed, Checkout started, Purchase completed, PDF downloaded. Add them as goals in Plausible to get a funnel.

Turning on payments

1. Create a Stripe account and copy the test secret key into .env.local as STRIPE_SECRET_KEY.
2. Pay with card 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future date, any CVC.
3. For production, use the live key and set NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL.
4. In the Stripe dashboard, turn on email receipts (Settings → Customer emails) and, for Apple Pay, verify your domain (Settings → Payment methods → Apple Pay).

Checkout is a one-time Stripe Checkout session built from the template's price (no Stripe products to set up). The download API re-checks the session with Stripe (paid, right document, within the 30-day free-edit window) before it generates a PDF.

How it fits together

Path	What it is
src/content/en-US/*.ts	The templates: questions (steps and fields), SEO copy, and a render() that turns answers into document blocks
src/content/index.ts	Template registry per locale (currency, regions, templates)
src/lib/doc.ts	Shared types and helpers. Answers are wrapped in tokens so the preview can highlight them
src/lib/pdf.ts	Renders the same blocks to a US Letter PDF with pdf-lib (page numbers, signature lines, notary block)
src/components/Wizard.tsx	The one-question-at-a-time editor with live preview, autosave, review and checkout
src/app/api/checkout	Creates the Stripe Checkout session (or a demo session)
src/app/api/download	Verifies the purchase and returns the PDF
src/app/documents/[slug]	SEO landing page per template, with FAQ and Product structured data

Answers live only in the visitor's browser (localStorage). They are sent to the server once, at download, to build the PDF, and are not stored.

Adding a template

Copy one of the files in src/content/en-US/, change the steps and render(), and add it to src/content/index.ts. Field types: text, textarea, date, choice (cards), select, multi (checkboxes), money, number, region, email. Steps and fields can be conditional with showIf.

To preview every template as a PDF with sample answers: npx tsx scripts/sample-pdfs.ts (writes to ./out).

Adding a language or country (e.g. Norway)

Create src/content/nb-NO/ with its own templates (for example a husleiekontrakt), register the locale in src/content/index.ts with currency: "nok" and the list of fylker as regions. The page routes currently serve the default locale; add a [locale] segment or a separate domain when the second locale is ready.

Before launch

See LAUNCH.md.