Task Roulette

A public feed of quick, absurd challenges — bounding boxes, taps, labels, drawings, short video clips — completed by random visitors in ~30 seconds. Posting a challenge and completing one both run on the same credit economy. See AGENTS.md for framework-specific notes and the task-template architecture under src/lib/templates/.

Local development

Requires a Postgres database (SQLite isn't used anymore — see "Why Postgres" below). The free tier of Neon works well for this.

1. Copy .env.example to .env and fill in DATABASE_URL (and a fresh ADMIN_PASSWORD — don't reuse a production one for local dev).
2. npm install (also runs prisma generate)
3. npx prisma migrate dev — creates the schema in whatever database DATABASE_URL points at, and generates a migration if the schema changed.
4. npx tsx prisma/seed.ts — optional, populates ~20 placeholder challenges across a handful of fake creator accounts so the feed isn't empty. No fake submissions are ever created — every response still requires a real visitor.
5. npm run dev — http://localhost:3000

Deploying (Vercel + Neon + Vercel Blob)

1. Database — Neon. Create a project at neon.tech (free tier). Copy the pooled connection string.
2. Push this repo to GitHub, then import it in Vercel (vercel.com/new).
3. Environment variables (Vercel project settings → Environment Variables):
   • DATABASE_URL — the Neon connection string from step 1.
   • ADMIN_PASSWORD — a fresh, strong password (this gates /admin, the moderation queue and the all-challenges view). Don't reuse the dev one.
   • BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN — enable Vercel Blob on the project (Storage tab → Create → Blob) and it's added automatically. Without this set, video recordings fall back to local-disk storage, which does not work on Vercel (ephemeral filesystem) — so this is required before Video Recording challenges work in production. Every other template type works fine without it.
4. Run the migration against the production database once, before or right after the first deploy: DATABASE_URL=<neon-url> npx prisma migrate deploy.
5. Seed data (optional): DATABASE_URL=<neon-url> npx tsx prisma/seed.ts.
6. Vercel builds with npm run build; postinstall runs prisma generate automatically, so no extra build config is needed.
7. Custom domain: add it any time under the Vercel project's Domains tab — no code changes needed. The app doesn't hardcode its own origin anywhere.

Why Postgres (not SQLite)

The app started on SQLite for zero-setup local dev. A real deploy needs a database reachable from wherever the app runs (SQLite's a local file, which doesn't survive or share across serverless instances), so the schema now targets Postgres only — Prisma can't target both from one schema file. If you don't want to depend on Neon for local dev too, ask about running a local Postgres instead.

Known v1 limitations worth knowing about before a real public launch

• Video duration is soft-enforced. The recorder auto-stops client-side and the server checks the claimed duration, but a modified client could send a longer clip. There's a hard 8MB upload cap as a backstop (ECONOMY.MAX_VIDEO_UPLOAD_BYTES), but no server-side re-encode/verify.
• No consensus/voting on answers — by design for v1 (see project spec), but means a bad-faith submission isn't caught automatically, only via the flag → admin review path.
• Anonymous credits reset if cookies are cleared — accepted tradeoff for the no-signup-wall feed; "claim your account" (/account) persists credits across devices if a visitor wants that.