SimplyCPA

A research-backed US CPA Exam study platform built for Indian CA students, commerce graduates, and working professionals — study material, revision notes, MCQ practice, and a real admin CMS, organized around the actual CPA Exam structure (3 Core sections + 1 Discipline).

Non-technical? See CONTENT-MANAGEMENT-GUIDE.md instead — it covers everyday editing without touching any code. For the research and content assumptions behind the seed data, see docs/RESEARCH.md.

Tech stack

• Next.js 16 (App Router) + TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4
• PostgreSQL via Prisma ORM 7 (driver-adapter architecture — see note below)
• Auth.js (NextAuth v5) with the Prisma adapter, Credentials provider
• Tiptap rich text editor for admin content, sanitized with sanitize-html before storage
• Deployment target: Vercel

Note on Prisma 7: this version of Prisma moved connection configuration out of schema.prisma and into prisma.config.ts, and generates the client into src/generated/prisma (via driver adapters like @prisma/adapter-pg) instead of node_modules/@prisma/client. If you're used to older Prisma versions, don't be surprised by this — it's intentional, not a misconfiguration.

Project structure

prisma/
  schema.prisma          # data model
  seed.ts                # seed script orchestrator
  seed-data/              # seed data: subject and topic structure (far.ts, aud.ts, ...), FAQs, blog, fees...
    content/              # study page + revision sheet for each topic, one file per topic
    mcq-bank/             # practice questions, keyed by topic slug
  check-abbreviations.ts  # checks short forms are written out in full on first use (npm run content:check)
src/
  app/
    (site)/               # public site — homepage, /cpa/*, /blog, /faq, /login, /dashboard, ...
    admin/                # staff-only CMS
    api/auth/             # Auth.js route handler
  components/
    ui/                   # design-system primitives (Button, Card, Badge, Tabs, Accordion...)
    home/, practice/, discussion/, faq/, fees/, admin/, content/, auth/, site/
  lib/
    actions/              # Server Actions (mutations)
    auth.ts, dal.ts        # Auth.js config + server-side authorization helpers
    prisma.ts             # Prisma client singleton (driver-adapter setup)
    sanitize.ts            # HTML allow-list for admin-authored content
  generated/prisma/        # generated Prisma Client (not checked in — see .gitignore)
proxy.ts                   # route protection for /admin and /dashboard (Next 16 renamed "middleware" to "proxy")

Setup

1. Prerequisites

• Node.js 20.9+ (this project was built with Node 24)
• A PostgreSQL database — the easiest path is a free Neon project; any Postgres connection string works

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in the values:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@host/dbname?sslmode=require"
AUTH_SECRET="run: openssl rand -base64 32"
NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL="http://localhost:3000"

# Optional — controls the admin account created by the seed script
SEED_ADMIN_EMAIL="[email protected]"
SEED_ADMIN_PASSWORD="choose-a-real-password"

4. Database setup

npm run db:generate   # generate the Prisma Client into src/generated/prisma
npm run db:migrate    # create tables (prompts for a migration name on first run)
npm run db:seed       # populate subjects, topics, study material, MCQs, FAQs, blog, fees, sources

5. Run the dev server

npm run dev

Visit http://localhost:3000. Log in at /login with the admin email/password from your .env (or the defaults [email protected] / ChangeMe123! if you didn't set them — change this password immediately if you seed a real environment with the defaults).

6. Admin access

The seed script creates one ADMIN user. To promote another user to staff access, either:

• Use Prisma Studio (npm run db:studio) to change their role field to EDITOR, MODERATOR, or ADMIN, or
• Have an existing Admin do it once a proper "Users" admin screen is built (not included in V1 — see "What's not built yet" below).

Common tasks

Task	Command / place
Add a subject/topic, edit content, manage MCQs, moderate comments	/admin — see CONTENT-MANAGEMENT-GUIDE.md
Regenerate Prisma Client after a schema change	npm run db:generate
Create a new migration after a schema change	npm run db:migrate
Inspect/edit raw data	npm run db:studio
Re-run the seed script (safe — uses upserts)	npm run db:seed
Lint	npm run lint
Production build	npm run build

Deployment (Vercel)

1. Push this repo to GitHub.
2. Import it into Vercel.
3. Set the environment variables from .env.example in the Vercel project settings (DATABASE_URL, AUTH_SECRET, NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL set to your production domain).
4. Add a Vercel "Build Command" override if you want migrations to run on deploy: npx prisma migrate deploy && npm run build. Do not run prisma migrate dev or db:seed automatically in production builds — apply migrations deliberately and seed only once per environment.

What's built in V1

Homepage, all 6 CPA sections with real topic structures, full study material + revision notes + MCQs for FAR (flagship), one fully-worked demo topic each for AUD/REG/BAR/ISC/TCP, an MCQ practice engine (server-graded, answers never sent to the client before submission), per-topic discussion/comments, FAQ + blog + CPA Radar + Fee Estimator + Indian-candidates guide, authentication with role-based admin access, a real admin CMS (subjects, topics, Study Material/Revision Notes editors with independent versioning, MCQ CRUD + CSV bulk import, blog/FAQ CRUD, comment moderation, source manager), SEO (sitemap, robots, JSON-LD), and responsive design throughout.

What's not built yet (by design — see docs/RESEARCH.md and the approved build plan)

• Payments/subscriptions (schema has a Tier field ready for this)
• Full TBS (task-based simulation) engine beyond MCQs
• AI assistant / RAG-based "Ask CPA" feature (schema's ContentStatus.AI_DRAFT is ready for an AI drafting pipeline)
• Personal private notes
• Admin screens for Fees/Jurisdictions/Testing Locations/Updates (edit via prisma/seed-data/facts.ts + reseed, or Prisma Studio, for now)
• Mock exam mode with a timer/full-screen exam UI (the practice engine supports topic-level sets today; mock exams reuse the same PracticeSession/MCQAttempt models and are a natural extension)
• A "Users" admin screen (promote/demote roles via Prisma Studio for now)