DocRoute

One personal, source-linked route for moving to Europe to study or work. DocRoute turns scattered university pages and immigration guidance into a single checklist: which documents you need, where you file them, and the date by which each step has to happen. Every rule links to the official page it came from and the date it was checked.

Live beta: https://docroute-student.vercel.app (free, non-commercial).

DocRoute is a preparation tool, not legal advice. Universities and authorities make every decision; recheck each requirement on its official source before you file anything.

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The problem

A student from outside the EU who wants a bachelor's degree in Slovakia or Czechia has to combine three systems that never talk to each other:

1. Admission rules of one faculty, for one intake year, often only in the local language, with waivers that depend on where you finished school.
2. Residence permit rules of the country, which changed in Slovakia on 15 July 2026 and differ for every citizenship and current status.
3. Deadlines that chain together: documents must be recent when you file, the decision can take 60–90 days, and you must report your arrival within a few working days.

Mistakes are expensive: a document that expires a week early or a permit filed at the wrong office can cost a whole academic year. Official sources are accurate but fragmented; generic advice sites mix up years, degrees and countries.

What DocRoute does

For whom	What they get
Students choosing a university	A profile (citizenship, school country, grades, languages, waiver evidence) matched against verified admission rules, with a status per requirement: met, missing, needs clarification.
People moving from abroad	A route from application to residence card, with a deadline planner: enter the date you need to be there and get the latest filing date, the window for each document and the duties after arrival.
People already in Europe	Routes for current residents and EU citizens: change of purpose, renewal, registration, and filing in Czechia with a Slovak study permit.

Current routes:

• Study in Slovakia: University of Žilina (FRI), four Computer Science bachelor programmes for 2027/28, plus the Slovak study residence permit.
• Study in Czechia: Charles University (MFF) Informatika for 2027/28, plus the Czech long-term residence permit for study.
• Work in Slovakia: single permit, EU Blue Card, Slovak graduates.
• Czechia residence: study and work permits, EU registration, and the in-country filing exception for holders of another EU state's study permit.
• Explore: a directory of 2,598 institutions in 46 countries and a Top 100 list (CWTS Leiden Ranking, open data) with admission facts for non-EU applicants.

Each route can be saved as a PDF, ticked off step by step, and shared as a link without an account.

How facts are sourced

The most important design decision is what DocRoute refuses to do.

• Only official sources, with a check date. Faculty regulations, the Slovak and Czech interior ministries' guidance, the IOM Migration Information Centre, consolidated legislation. The source and date are shown next to every requirement.
• No borrowed rules. A rule from another year, degree, field or purpose never produces a personalised checklist. Programmes whose next-year rules are only drafts are listed as "Rules awaiting approval" and never matched.
• No admission predictions. No percentages, no "your chances". When a rule is ambiguous (for example, whether a faculty's exemption for Czech applicants covers a Czech citizen who finished school in Ukraine), the route says "ask the faculty" instead of guessing.
• Contradictions are documented. When an official page contradicts itself (two different deadlines on one page), the route uses the earlier date and the inconsistency is recorded in docs/STATUS.md.

Architecture

• Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript, deployed on Vercel with a Preview deployment for every pull request.
• Supabase (Postgres, Auth with email and Google) for accounts, saved profiles, bookmarks and progress. Every table uses row-level security: a signed-in person can read only their own rows.
• Rules as data. Admission policies and residence rules are typed data files (src/data/*) with their sources; route builders in src/lib/residence/* and src/lib/match-programs.ts are pure functions, so they are unit-tested without a browser or database.
• Date logic runs in UTC with Slovak public holidays computed from the law (including Easter), so the server and the browser always show the same dates.
• Guests first. Route answers live in the URL (those pages are noindex) and progress in local storage; signing in merges them into the account.

Privacy by design (GDPR)

DocRoute is run by a private individual in Slovakia, so the legal side had to be simple and correct rather than copied from a template:

• Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy read from one data file (src/data/legal.ts), so a change shows everywhere.
• Self-service rights: "Download my data" (JSON) and "Delete my account" (a security definer database function limited to auth.uid()).
• Consent where it is needed: an unticked checkbox for the waitlist, a one-step way to leave it, and visit statistics that load only after "Accept all" and never send the route answers in the URL.
• Insert-only tables for the waitlist and feedback: the public can add a row, but nobody can read the table through the API.
• Tests guard the promises: no tracker packages, the cookie list matches the keys the code actually stores, the operator stays unnamed while the beta is free, and nothing is sold until a trade licence exists.

Quality

• 181 unit tests (Node's built-in test runner) covering admission matching, residence routes, deadline planning, holidays, legal pages, database migrations and print/accessibility rules.
• Database migrations are re-runnable and were tested against a local PostgreSQL with Supabase-like roles before being applied.
• Every pull request is checked on its Vercel Preview in the browser, at 375 px phone width and in both light and dark themes, before it is merged.
• A status file (docs/STATUS.md) records what was checked, when, against which source, and every known gap.

Status and what's next

Public beta since 28 October 2026. Next:

• Update the Top 100 list with the Leiden Ranking 2026 (published 4 Nov 2026).
• Beta interviews with 10–20 students and a waitlist for a fuller route, to decide whether a paid version is worth building.
• Add the next faculties only when their 2027/28 rules are officially approved (Comenius University FMFI, STU FIIT, TUKE FEI).

Beta results (to be filled in after the interviews): number of interviews, the main problems people described, waitlist sign-ups, and what changed because of the feedback.

Run it locally

npm install
cp .env.example .env.local
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. Public environment variables:

NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY
NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL

Supabase

Run the SQL migrations in supabase/migrations/ in filename order in the Supabase SQL editor (the first one, 20260927190000, is a historical placeholder). Every later migration is safe to run more than once. Add the local and deployed callback URLs to the Supabase redirect allow list:

http://localhost:3000/auth/callback
https://your-domain.example/auth/callback

Checks

npm run lint
npm test
npm run build
npm run test:ssr

Deployment

Connect the repository to Vercel, set the three environment variables for Preview and Production, run the migrations, and enable Web Analytics in the Vercel project if visit statistics are wanted (they still load only after consent).

About

Built and maintained by one student living in Slovakia, for people in the same situation. Development used an AI coding assistant (Claude by Anthropic); every change went through a pull request and was checked on a preview deployment before merging.