FlowForm

FlowForm is a form builder monorepo: create forms with optional start/end dates, publish shareable links, and collect submissions from respondents without accounts.

Stack

• Monorepo: Turborepo + pnpm
• Web: Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, tRPC + TanStack Query
• API: Express 5, tRPC (OpenAPI via trpc-to-openapi), Scalar API reference
• Data: PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM

Repository layout

Path	Description
apps/web	Next.js app — marketing site, auth, dashboard, public form pages
apps/api	HTTP server exposing tRPC at /trpc
packages/database	Drizzle schema, migrations, db:generate / db:migrate
packages/trpc	Shared tRPC routers (auth, form) and client utilities
packages/services	Business logic (users, forms, submissions)
packages/logger	Shared logging
packages/eslint-config, packages/typescript-config	Shared tooling configs

Features

• Email/password sign-up and sign-in (JWT in HTTP-only cookies)
• Dashboard to create and manage forms
• Form fields (text, textarea, email, number, select, radio, checkbox, date, etc.)
• Publish forms and share a public link at /f/{formId}
• Optional start and end dates — submissions only accepted while the form is open
• Landing page (features, pricing, FAQ, and related sections)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm 9 (see packageManager in root package.json)
• Docker (for local PostgreSQL)

Getting started

1. Start PostgreSQL

docker compose up -d

This runs Postgres 15 on port 5432 with database dev, user postgres, password postgres (see docker-compose.yml).

2. Environment variables

Create a .env file at the repository root. The setup.sh script symlinks it into apps/* and packages/* so all workspaces share the same values.

# Database (matches docker-compose defaults)
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/dev

# Auth (use a long random string in production)
JWT_SECRET=your-dev-jwt-secret

# Web → API (optional; defaults to http://localhost:8000/trpc)
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:8000/trpc

# API server (optional)
PORT=8000
NODE_ENV=development

Run the setup helper (creates .env from .env.example when that file exists, otherwise link your .env):

chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

3. Migrate the database

pnpm db:migrate

To generate new migrations after schema changes:

pnpm db:generate

4. Run development servers

pnpm dev

Service	URL
Web	http://localhost:3000
API / tRPC	http://localhost:8000/trpc

Open Drizzle Studio from the database package:

pnpm --filter @repo/database dev

Web routes

Route	Purpose
/	Marketing / landing
/sign-in, /sign-up	Authentication
/dashboard	Overview
/dashboard/forms	Form list and management
/f/[formId]	Public form (fill & submit; no account required)

Scripts

From the repo root:

Command	Description
pnpm dev	Start all apps in dev mode (loads .env via dotenv-cli)
pnpm build	Production build
pnpm lint	ESLint across the monorepo
pnpm check-types	TypeScript check
pnpm db:migrate	Apply Drizzle migrations
pnpm db:generate	Generate Drizzle migrations from schema changes
pnpm format	Prettier write

Filter to a single app:

pnpm exec turbo dev --filter=web
pnpm exec turbo dev --filter=@repo/api

API overview

tRPC procedures live under packages/trpc/server/routes/:

• Authentication — register, sign in, session (getLoggedInUserInfo)
• Forms — CRUD, fields, publish, public read, submit, submission stats

The API app also serves OpenAPI documentation (Scalar) when running in development.

Production notes

• Set strong JWT_SECRET and a production DATABASE_URL.
• Point NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL at your deployed API’s /trpc endpoint.
• Run pnpm build and start apps/web with next start and apps/api with its start script after building the API bundle.

License

Private project — see repository settings for license terms if applicable.