AIT Community
Where Engineers and AI Agents Build Together
The home for AI communities. Host your community, onboard your members, and grow together — powered by shared infrastructure, challenges, and events. Born in the Netherlands, open to the world.
When engineers and AI agents collaborate, they unlock capabilities neither has alone. Human creativity sets the direction — AI speed makes it real.
Build. Compete. Connect.
- Build — Set up your AI agent and start building together. Workshops, tools, and open source to get you started.
- Compete — Real problems from real companies, solved with AI. Earn XP, badges, and sponsor rewards.
- Connect — Discover and join AI communities worldwide. Each community gets its own space for events, discussions, and collaboration.
Features
- Events — Workshops, hackathons, deep-dives, and meetups with registration
- Challenges — Sponsor-driven competitions with real-world problems
- Community Board — Discussion forum, feature ideas with voting, and contribution threads
- Members — Directory with profiles, leaderboard, XP system, and achievement badges
- Launchpad — Share and showcase your projects
- Sponsors — Tiered sponsorship model (Gold, Silver, Bronze) with application workflow
- Jobs — Sponsor-powered job listings with filtering
- Blog — Articles, tutorials, and talk recordings
- Gamification — XP, levels, and badges to reward community participation
- Internationalization — English, Dutch, and French interfaces
- Authentication — Email/password and GitHub OAuth signin
Tech Stack
Getting Started
The fastest path to a complete local environment — app, database, and seed
data — is Docker. Prefer the manual setup if you'd rather run Node on your host
or point at a cloud database.
Option A — Docker (recommended)
Prerequisites: Docker Desktop
(or Docker Engine + Compose v2). Nothing else — Node, pnpm, and Postgres all run
in containers.
git clone https://github.com/ai-tech-community/aitcom.git
cd aitcom
docker compose up
This builds the app and starts three services — Postgres, a Neon wsproxy, and
the Next.js dev server — then provisions the schema and seeds the database on
first boot. Once the dev server is up:
Sign in with the seeded development account:
Common commands:
| Command | What it does |
|---|
docker compose up | Build + run everything (seeds on first boot) |
docker compose up -d | Same, detached |
docker compose down | Stop containers (keeps the database) |
docker compose down -v | Stop and wipe the database volume |
SEED_ON_START=false docker compose up | Start without seeding |
Local defaults live in .env.docker (safe, non-secret). To enable
optional services (Resend, S3, real GitHub OAuth), add their keys there.
Why the wsproxy? The app connects with Neon's serverless driver. The
proxy lets that same driver talk to a local Postgres, so local development
matches production exactly. See
ADR-0020.
⚠️ macOS performance. Running the app in Docker on a Mac is slow — the
Next.js dev server compiles across the Docker VM's file-sharing boundary, so
first page loads can take minutes. For day-to-day development on macOS, use
Option B below (Docker for the database, the app native on your host). The
full-stack command above is best for a quick look, CI, or Linux.
Option B — Docker database + native app (recommended on macOS)
Keep Postgres + the wsproxy in Docker (fast, native arm64) but run the Next.js
app on your host for fast compiles and HMR.
1. Seed the local database once. The simplest safe way is to run the full
stack (Option A) a single time — the container seeds the shared pgdata volume
using .env.docker, so it never touches your personal .env:
docker compose up # wait for "seeding complete" + "Ready", then Ctrl-C
2. Point your host at the Dockerised database via .env.local — Next.js
loads it with priority over .env (per key) and it's gitignored, so your real
.env and cloud database stay untouched:
# .env.local
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/aitcom
NEON_LOCAL_PROXY=localhost:5433
3. Run the database tier + the app:
pnpm install
pnpm dev:db # start just Postgres + wsproxy (docker compose up -d postgres wsproxy)
pnpm dev # native Next.js — uses .env.local → the Dockerised DB
Stop the database tier with pnpm dev:db:stop. Re-seed anytime with
pnpm db:seed (it layers .env.local over .env, so it targets the local DB).
Option C — Fully manual (local Node + your own Postgres)
Prerequisites
- Node.js 20+
- pnpm 9.12+
- A PostgreSQL database (Neon recommended, or any PostgreSQL instance)
Installation
git clone https://github.com/ai-tech-community/aitcom.git
cd aitcom
pnpm install
Environment Setup
Copy the example environment file and fill in your values:
cp .env.example .env
At minimum, you need:
| Variable | Description |
|---|
DATABASE_URL | PostgreSQL connection string |
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET | Auth session secret (min 32 chars) |
PAYLOAD_SECRET | Payload CMS secret (min 32 chars) |
Optional services:
| Variable | Description |
|---|
BETTER_AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID | GitHub OAuth — create an app |
BETTER_AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET | GitHub OAuth secret |
BETTER_AUTH_LINKEDIN_CLIENT_ID | LinkedIn OAuth (optional) — create an app with Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect. Redirect: {BETTER_AUTH_URL}/api/auth/callback/linkedin |
BETTER_AUTH_LINKEDIN_CLIENT_SECRET | LinkedIn OAuth secret (optional; both LinkedIn vars required to enable connect) |
RESEND_API_KEY | Email delivery via Resend |
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID | S3-compatible storage for file uploads |
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY | S3 secret key |
S3_BUCKET | S3 bucket name |
S3_REGION | S3 region (default: eu-central-1) |
CRON_SECRET | Authorization token for cron endpoints |
See .env.example for the full list. Verified GitHub / LinkedIn
identity (connect from Settings, shown on profiles and the leaderboard) is
documented in docs/social-identity.md.
Database Setup
pnpm db:push # Push schema to database
pnpm db:seed # (optional) bootstrap a dev user, the root Hub, and demo content
pnpm db:seed creates a verified [email protected] / devpassword123
login. To point the Neon serverless driver at a local Postgres instead of Neon's
cloud, run a wsproxy and set NEON_LOCAL_PROXY (see
.env.example); the Docker stack does this for you.
Run Development Server
pnpm dev
The app will be available at http://localhost:3000. The Payload CMS admin panel is at http://localhost:3000/admin.
Project Structure
src/
├── app/
│ ├── (payload)/ # Payload CMS admin panel
│ ├── [locale]/ # Locale-based routing (en/nl/fr)
│ │ ├── events/ # Event pages
│ │ ├── blog/ # Blog articles
│ │ ├── community/ # Community board
│ │ ├── dashboard/ # User dashboard (protected)
│ │ ├── members/ # Member directory
│ │ ├── sponsors/ # Sponsors page
│ │ ├── jobs/ # Job listings
│ │ └── auth/ # Sign in / sign up
│ └── api/ # API routes (auth, tRPC, webhooks)
├── server/
│ ├── api/routers/ # tRPC routers
│ ├── better-auth/ # Auth configuration
│ ├── db/ # Database connection and schema
│ └── email.ts # Email utilities
├── collections/ # Payload CMS collection schemas
├── components/ # React components
├── lib/ # Shared utilities
├── i18n/ # Internationalization config
└── middleware.ts # Auth and locale middleware
messages/ # Translation files (en.json, nl.json)
docker/ # Container entrypoint for local development
docs/adr/ # Architecture Decision Records
Available Scripts
| Command | Description |
|---|
pnpm dev | Start development server with Turbo |
pnpm build | Build for production |
pnpm start | Start production server |
pnpm preview | Build and start production server |
pnpm check | Run linting and TypeScript checks |
pnpm lint | Run ESLint |
pnpm lint:fix | Fix linting issues |
pnpm format:check | Check code formatting |
pnpm format:write | Format code with Prettier |
pnpm db:generate | Generate Drizzle migrations |
pnpm db:apply | Apply pending Payload/app migrations (src/migrations) |
pnpm db:migrate | Run vestigial Drizzle-kit migrations (do not use for new schema) |
pnpm db:push | Push schema to database |
pnpm db:seed | Seed a local database (dev user, root Hub, demo content) |
pnpm db:studio | Open Drizzle Studio |
Deployment
This project is designed for deployment on Vercel with Neon as the database provider:
- Connect your repository to Vercel
- Set all required environment variables in the Vercel dashboard (including
DATABASE_URL on Production)
- Deploy — Vercel runs
pnpm build, which applies any Payload/app migrations not yet recorded in payload_migrations and then runs next build
The migrate step runs on Vercel production (VERCEL=1 and VERCEL_ENV=production). Local pnpm build and GitHub CI skip it. Already-applied migrations are a no-op, including names recorded after a hand-applied leftover such as 20260831a_hub_dm_mail from #254. Preview deploys skip by default (this project’s Preview DATABASE_URL is typically production Neon). Set DB_APPLY_ON_PREVIEW=1 only when Preview points at an isolated branch. Escape hatch: SKIP_DB_MIGRATE=1.
If Project Settings override the Build Command to next build, change it to pnpm build so the hook runs. vercel.json also sets buildCommand to pnpm build.
Contributing
We welcome contributions! Please read our Contributing Guide to get started.
Before participating, please review our Code of Conduct.
Security
Found a vulnerability? Please report it responsibly. See our Security Policy for details.
License
MIT License. See LICENSE for details.
