Chalk — sports betting social network (MVP)
A working starter covering all 13 core features:
signup/login, profiles, follow/unfollow, posts, bet-slip images, likes,
comments, pick categories, win/loss tracking, leaderboard, user search,
report/block, and admin moderation.
Stack: Next.js 14 (App Router) + Supabase (Postgres + Auth + Storage).
Both have free tiers generous enough to run a real MVP at $0/month.
1. Set up Supabase (free)
- Create a project at https://supabase.com (free tier).
- Go to the SQL Editor and run the contents of
supabase/schema.sql.
This creates every table, the leaderboard view, and Row Level Security
policies — RLS is what stops users from editing each other's data.
- Go to Storage → create a new public bucket named
bet-slips.
This is where uploaded bet-slip screenshots are stored.
- Go to Project Settings → API and copy:
- Project URL
anon public keyservice_role secret key (admin-only, never expose in the browser)
- To make yourself an admin: after signing up in the app once, run in
the SQL editor:
update profiles set is_admin = true where username = 'your_username';
2. Configure the app
cp .env.example .env.local
# paste in your Supabase URL + keys
npm install
npm run dev
Visit http://localhost:3000.
3. Deploy for free
- Push this folder to a GitHub repo.
- Go to https://vercel.com → New Project → import the repo.
- Add the same three environment variables from
.env.local in
Vercel's project settings.
- Deploy. You get a free
*.vercel.app URL immediately; you can attach
a custom domain later (~$10–12/year from any registrar) once you want
one.
Total cost to launch: $0/month (Vercel Hobby + Supabase Free tier).
You'll only start paying if you outgrow the free tiers — Supabase free
covers 500MB database + 1GB storage + 50k monthly active users, which
is far more than enough for an MVP.
What's built vs. what's a starting point
Built and working end-to-end:
- Real signup/login (Supabase Auth, email + password)
- Public profiles with bio, follower/following counts, record
- Follow / unfollow
- Create a post with category, odds, stake, caption
- Upload a bet slip screenshot (Supabase Storage)
- Like / unlike posts
- Comment counts wired up (see note below)
- Pick categories (NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. — editable in
categories table)
- Win/loss/push grading on your own posts, feeding your record
- Leaderboard (SQL view, 30-day win %, min. 5 graded picks)
- Search users by username
- Block and report a user
- Admin moderation queue: view open reports, ban users, remove posts
Left as a quick next step (structure is already in place):
app/post/[id]/page.tsx — single post detail page with a comment thread
UI (the comments table, RLS, and comment counts already work — only
the dedicated page + comment form UI needs to be added, following the
same pattern as ProfileActions.tsx)- Feed filtering by "following" vs. "everyone" and by category
- Email verification UI polish (Supabase sends the email automatically;
you may want a "check your inbox" screen)
- Avatar upload (same pattern as the bet-slip upload)
- Rate limiting on posting/reporting to prevent spam (Supabase has
built-in options, or add a simple check in the insert RLS policy)
Design
The visual identity blends three references: Instagram's clean white
card-based feed, Twitter's tight sticky top bar and follow-pill buttons,
and ESPN's bold scoreboard energy for stats — a condensed heavy display
face (Barlow Condensed) for headlines, records, and win-rate numbers, a
red "score-bug" badge for league tags and win/loss stamps, and a
horizontally-scrolling league chip row (NBA / NFL / MLB / …) at the top
of the feed for filtering, styled like ESPN's sport selector / Instagram's
stories row. Tokens live in app/globals.css.
