Sasta Pathao

A free, open-source ride-coordination board for the Youngstown, Ohio area — post a ride request or offer (now or scheduled ahead of time), and let another person propose to fill it. No payments are handled anywhere in this app; it's purely a convenience tool.

The name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to Pathao, the ride-sharing app in Nepal — "sasta" means "cheap" in Nepali/Hindi. This is an unaffiliated, unofficial parody/hobby project, not a Pathao product.

Stack

• Next.js (App Router, TypeScript) on Vercel
• Neon Postgres via Drizzle ORM
• Auth.js (NextAuth v5) — passwordless email sign-in: a 6-digit code (plus a click-through link as a shortcut when it's opened on the same device)
• Resend + React Email for transactional email
• Web Push (VAPID) for optional browser notifications — a self-generated keypair, not a third-party account/API key
• Vercel Blob for profile picture uploads
• google-maps branch only (not on main): Google Maps for address search/autocomplete, reverse geocoding, an interactive map, and a drawn driving route — needs a real, billing-enabled API key, unlike everything else on this list. See CLAUDE.md for the two-separate-keys setup.
• Tailwind CSS

Setup

1. Install dependencies

   npm install
   

2. Create a Neon Postgres database — sign up free at neon.tech, create a project, and copy the pooled connection string.

3. Create a Resend account (for magic-link sign-in and match notification emails) — sign up free at resend.com and grab an API key. Without this set, the app still runs: sign-in links and notifications are logged to the server console instead of emailed.

4. (Optional) Create a Vercel Blob store — for profile picture uploads. In your Vercel project's Storage tab, create a free Blob store; it injects BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN automatically once deployed. For local dev, copy the token it shows you, or run vercel env pull .env.local once the project's linked. Without it, uploading a photo just errors — everything else in the app still works.

5. google-maps branch only: set up Google Maps Platform — needs a real, billing-enabled project (no free-tier fallback on this branch). In Google Cloud Console: enable Places API (New), Geocoding API, Directions API, and Maps JavaScript API; enable billing; set a budget alert; then create two separate API keys (see CLAUDE.md for exactly how each should be restricted) for GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY and NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY below. Without these, every map on the site shows Google's own "can't load Google Maps" placeholder instead of crashing — fine for working on anything else in the meantime.

6. Configure environment variables

   cp .env.example .env.local
   

   Fill in DATABASE_URL (from Neon), RESEND_API_KEY and EMAIL_FROM (from Resend), BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN (from the Blob store above), GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY and NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY (from step 5), and generate an AUTH_SECRET:

   npx auth secret
   

7. Run the database migration

   npm run db:migrate
   

8. (Optional) Seed sample data for local testing:

Scripts

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Start the dev server
npm run build	Production build
npm start	Run a production build
npm run lint	ESLint
npm run db:generate	Generate a new SQL migration from lib/db/schema.ts
npm run db:migrate	Apply pending migrations to DATABASE_URL
npm run db:studio	Open Drizzle Studio (visual browser for the database)
npm run db:seed	Insert a couple of sample users/posts for local testing
npm run db:ban -- <email> [reason]	Ban a user by email: blocks future sign-in, revokes any active session, cancels their open posts and declines their pending claims
npm run db:unban -- <email>	Lift a ban

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗