Sunrise - build production apps faster

A production-ready Next.js 16 starter template designed for rapid application development with AI assistance — now with a complete AI agent orchestration layer baked in.

Why Sunrise?

• Production-ready from day one — Auth, database, APIs, security headers, rate limiting all configured
• Agent-ready — Production AI agent orchestration: agents, tools, workflows, knowledge bases (RAG), evaluations, observability
• Just ask Claude — Documentation written as AI context; ask questions, get answers, start building
• Balanced — Comprehensive yet customizable; not too minimal, not too opinionated
• Fork-friendly — Take what you need, customize what you want
• API-first — Actions accessible via versioned API endpoints, MCP server, and agent capabilities — ready for agents and integrations

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Next.js 16 (App Router) + TypeScript
Database	PostgreSQL + Prisma 7 (pgvector for semantic search)
Authentication	better-auth
Styling	Tailwind CSS 4 + shadcn/ui
Email	Resend + React Email
Validation	Zod throughout
Deployment	Docker-ready
AI Orchestration	Multi-LLM agents, workflows, RAG, MCP server
LLM Providers	Anthropic, OpenAI (extensible via provider abstraction)

Agent Orchestration

Sunrise ships with a complete AI agent orchestration layer. Admins design, configure, execute, and monitor AI agent systems from /admin/orchestration; consumer-facing chat is exposed via /api/v1/chat and an embeddable widget.

What's included:

• Agents — Configured AI personas with system instructions, model selection, temperature, budgets, and attached capabilities
• Capabilities (tools) — Function-calling tools that agents invoke; ships with built-ins (knowledge search, memory, pattern lookup) and a 4-step pipeline for adding custom tools
• Workflows (DAGs) — Multi-step pipelines with 15 step types: routing, chaining, parallel branches, RAG retrieval, human approval gates, error strategies, templating
• Knowledge bases (RAG) — Document ingestion (MD, PDF, EPUB, DOCX), chunking, embeddings, and pgvector semantic search scoped per agent
• Multi-LLM providers — Provider abstraction with fallback chains, model registry, and cost tracking
• MCP server — Model Context Protocol integration so Claude Code (or any MCP client) can use your agents and tools
• Embed widget — Token-authenticated, CORS-aware chat widget loadable into any site
• Scheduling & webhooks — Cron-scheduled autonomous runs and event-driven triggers
• Evaluations & A/B experiments — Named-metric scoring (faithfulness, groundedness, relevance) and variant lifecycle
• Observability — Execution tracing (OTEL plug-in), conversation export, audit log, approval queue, dashboard analytics

Built on the 21 agentic design patterns from Agentic Design Patterns by Antonio Gullí.

Docs:

• .context/orchestration/meta/functional-specification.md — What the system does (canonical)
• .context/admin/orchestration.md — Admin operator landing, quick start
• .context/orchestration/meta/ — Architectural decisions, hosting, roadmap, commercial proposition

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 24+ (see .nvmrc)
• PostgreSQL 15+ (local, Docker, or hosted)

Setup

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/human-centric-engineering/sunrise.git
cd sunrise

# Create environment file
cp .env.example .env.local

## Generate BETTER_AUTH_SECRET
openssl rand -base64 32

# Edit .env.local with:
#  - your DATABASE_URL
#  - your BETTER_AUTH_SECRET

# Install dependencies (will error if the database url isn't valid)
npm install

# Set up database
npm run db:migrate:dev

# Start development
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3010 to see the app — the port is set by PORT in the committed .env.development, which npm run dev reads.

Running more than one Sunrise app on the same machine? Give each one its own PORT in its .env.development and npm run dev binds it, with no -p flag to remember. Forks should change the value rather than inherit 3010. See PORT.

Using Docker

docker-compose up                                    # Start app + database
docker-compose exec web npx prisma migrate dev       # Run migrations (first time)

First admin account

Sunrise ships no default login credentials. On a fresh database, the first account you create — sign up at /signup — is automatically promoted to ADMIN. Every account created after that is a regular USER.

npm run db:seed provisions a non-login [email protected] user that owns the seeded orchestration configuration. It has no password and cannot sign in; it does not count as the "first account", so your first real signup still becomes the admin.

Essential Commands

npm run dev              # Start dev server
npm run validate         # CHANGELOG + Node version + type-check + lint + format (Prettier + Prisma)
npm run db:studio        # Open Prisma Studio
npm test                 # Run tests

Full command reference: .context/commands.md

Optional Features

These work without configuration in development and can be enabled for production:

• Email — Console logging in dev; configure Resend for production. See .context/email/
• Analytics — Console provider in dev; configure PostHog/GA4/Plausible for production. See .context/analytics/
• File Storage — Local filesystem in dev; configure S3/R2/Vercel Blob for production. See .context/storage/

Documentation

• CUSTOMIZATION.md — Building on Sunrise: the fork/app onboarding guide — extension model, package.json policy, staying in sync with upstream
• CONTRIBUTING.md — Contributing changes back to Sunrise itself
• .context/substrate.md — Full architecture and reference docs
• .context/orchestration/meta/functional-specification.md — Agent orchestration: full system inventory and capability spec

Just Ask Claude

Sunrise includes comprehensive documentation in .context/ written specifically as AI context. Instead of reading through docs, just ask Claude:

• "How do I set up S3 for file uploads?"
• "What are the password validation rules?"
• "Add a new API endpoint for user preferences"
• "How does authentication work in this project?"
• "Build me an agent that searches my knowledge base"
• "Add a capability so my agent can call the Stripe API"

Clone the repo, start Claude Code, and start building. Claude already knows how Sunrise works.

Enhanced Capabilities

Install the Next.js DevTools MCP server for real-time diagnostics and browser automation:

claude mcp add next-devtools npx next-devtools-mcp@latest

See the Next.js DevTools MCP docs for details.

Acknowledgements

The 21 design patterns referenced throughout the orchestration learning area are adapted from Agentic Design Patterns by Antonio Gullí.

License

MIT

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Built with ☕ and ⚡ for developers who ship.