Supabase

Create a new Supabase project

1. Go to the Supabase dashboard.
2. Create a new project (choose a strong database password and a region close to your users).
3. Supabase will automatically provision a PostgreSQL database for you.

Optionally, you can customize the Security options by choosing the Only Connection String option - it will opt out of autogenerating API for tables inside your database. It's not needed for TurboStarter setup, but of course you can still leverage it for your custom use-cases.

Once the project is ready, you can fetch the connection string.

Get the database connection string

In the Supabase dashboard:

1. Open your project.
2. Click on the Connect button at the top.
3. Locate the connection string for your chosen ORM (it will be under the ORMs tab).

Copy this value - you'll use it as your DATABASE_URL.

Configure environment variables

TurboStarter reads database connection settings from the root .env.local file and uses them inside the @turbostarter/db package.

Create (or update) the .env.local file in the monorepo root:

DATABASE_URL="postgres://postgres.[YOUR-PROJECT-REF]:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@aws-0-[aws-region].pooler.supabase.com:6543/postgres?pgbouncer=true&connection_limit=1"

Replace:

• YOUR-PROJECT-REF with your Supabase project ref
• YOUR-PASSWORD with the database password you set when creating the project
• aws-region with the region shown in the Supabase connection string

For more background on how DATABASE_URL is used, see Database overview.

Setup your Supabase database

With DATABASE_URL now pointing to Supabase, you can apply the existing TurboStarter schema to your Supabase database.

From the monorepo root, run:

pnpm with-env pnpm --filter @turbostarter/db db:migrate

This will:

• Use your Supabase DATABASE_URL from .env.local
• Run all pending SQL migrations from packages/db/migrations
• Create the full TurboStarter schema (users, billing, demo tables, etc.) in Supabase

If you're actively iterating on the schema, you can generate new migrations and apply them as described in Migrations.

pnpm with-env pnpm turbo db:seed

Use Supabase Storage as S3-compatible storage

TurboStarter's storage layer is designed to work seamlessly with any S3-compatible provider. In this section, we'll show how to use Supabase Storage as your application's file storage back-end.

Supabase Storage provides a simple, S3-compatible API and is a great choice if you're already using Supabase for your database.

Create a storage bucket

1. In the Supabase dashboard, go to Storage → Buckets.
2. Click Create bucket (name it whatever you want, for example avatars or uploads).
3. Adjust settings based on your needs (e.g. limit the maximum file size, specify the allowed file types, etc.)

You can create multiple buckets (for documents, images, videos, etc.) if needed.

Generate S3 access keys in Supabase dashboard

1. Go to Storage → S3 → Access keys.
2. Click New access key.
3. Give it a descriptive name and create the key.
4. Copy the Access key ID and Secret access key to use in your application.

Configure S3 environment variables for Supabase Storage

In your weba application's .env.local, add (or update) the S3 configuration used by TurboStarter's storage layer:

S3_REGION="us-east-1"
S3_BUCKET="avatars"
S3_ENDPOINT="https://[YOUR-PROJECT-REF].supabase.co/storage/v1/s3"
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID="your-access-key-id"
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="your-secret-access-key"

These variables integrate directly with the storage configuration described in:

• Storage overview
• Storage configuration

Once set, existing TurboStarter file upload flows (e.g. user avatars, organization logos) will use Supabase Storage via presigned URLs.

Run your API on Supabase Edge Functions

As we're using a Hono as our API server, you can deploy it as a Supabase Edge Function so it runs close to your users.

At a high level:

1. Install the Supabase CLI and initialize a Supabase project locally with supabase init.
2. Create a new Edge Function (for example hono-backend) with supabase functions new hono-backend.
3. Inside the generated function (for example supabase/functions/hono-backend/index.ts), set up a basic Hono app and export it via Deno.serve(app.fetch):

import { Hono } from "jsr:@hono/hono";

// change this to your function name
const functionName = "hono-backend";
const app = new Hono().basePath(`/${functionName}`);

app.get("/hello", (c) => c.text("Hello from hono-server!"));

Deno.serve(app.fetch);

4. Run the function locally with supabase start and supabase functions serve --no-verify-jwt, then call it from your TurboStarter app using the local or deployed function URL.
5. When you're ready, deploy the function with supabase functions deploy (or supabase functions deploy hono-backend) and manage it using the Supabase dashboard, as described in the Supabase Edge Functions docs.

This is entirely optional, but it's a great fit for lightweight APIs, webhooks, and other serverless logic you want to run alongside your Supabase project.

Explore additional Supabase features

Supabase is a full Postgres development platform, so beyond the database and storage pieces wired up above you can gradually add more features as your app grows (see the Supabase homepage for an overview).

Some features that fit especially well with TurboStarter's design are:

• Realtime - built on Postgres replication, so you can stream changes from your existing TurboStarter tables (inserts, updates, deletes) into live UIs without changing how you manage schema or RLS. You still define tables and policies via @turbostarter/db, and opt into Realtime on top.
• Vector - powered by the pgvector extension and stored in regular Postgres tables, making it easy to integrate semantic search or AI features while keeping everything in the same migrations and Drizzle models you already use in TurboStarter. We're using it extensively in our dedicated AI Kit.
• Cron - enables you to schedule background jobs and periodic tasks with pg_cron. You can define cron jobs for things like scheduled database cleanups, sending emails, report generation, or any recurring logic, all managed alongside your TurboStarter app with full Postgres integration.

Because these features are all layered on top of Postgres, you can introduce them incrementally and keep managing everything through your familiar workflow.

Start the development server

With the database and other services configured to use Supabase, you can start TurboStarter as usual from the monorepo root:

pnpm dev

TurboStarter will now:

• Use Supabase Postgres as your database through DATABASE_URL
• Use Supabase Storage as your file storage through the S3-compatible endpoint
• Leverage Supabase Edge Functions (for example, with Hono) for your serverless backend