Quick Start

Create Your First Project

npx matt-init@latest

Interactive Setup

The CLI will guide you through a series of prompts:

Project Name

Set your project name. I'll be using test-app for this example.

Backend Setup

Choose between full-stack or frontend-only. For this example, select Database + Drizzle + BetterAuth.

Database Provider

Select your preferred database (currently there's only one). For this example, we'll use Turso.

Additional Options

Choose whatever extra tooling or configuration you want. I'll be using:

• Nix development environment, to manage dependencies like Node, pnpm, Drizzle, sqld, etc.
• VS Code settings, to enable linting on save, auto-formatting, and recommended extensions.
• Initialize a Git repository, so I can track changes.
• Install dependencies automatically.

Running the Project

Once your project is created, make sure to cd into your project directory and install dependencies:

cd test-app
nix develop # Enter the Nix shell
pnpm install # Install dependencies

If you're not using a Nix shell here, you'll need to install dependencies manually. Make sure to look at the Turso documentation for instructions on how to set up the CLI and database locally.

Finally, fire off a pnpm dev (or npm run dev) to start your development server. You'll see something like this:

[1]    ▲ Next.js 15.3.2 (Turbopack)
[1]    - Local:        http://localhost:3000
[1]    - Network:      http://192.168.1.226:3000
[1]    - Environments: .env
[1]
[0] sqld listening on port 8080.
[0] Use the following URL to configure your libSQL client SDK for local development:
[0]
[0]     http://127.0.0.1:8080
[0]
[0] Using database file local.db.
[1]  ✓ Ready in 782ms

A couple important things to note here:

• We're technically running two commands here. pnpm dev fires off pnpm run dev:db, which starts up Turso for us, and next dev --turbopack, which starts up the Next.js development server concurrently. Any database output will be prefixed with [0], and Next.js output will be prefixed with [1].
• The sqld server is running on port 8080, which is where your database is hosted. If you have anything else running on that port, you'll need to change it in your package.json scripts, as well as in your .env.
• The Next.js server is running on port 3000, which is the default port for Next.js applications. You can change this in your package.json scripts if needed. Once again, if you have anything else running on that port, you'll need to change it in your package.json and in your .env file.

We've got one more thing to do before we can call it a day: set up authentication. Luckily, matt-init comes with a pre-configured authentication system using better-auth. Pop open a new terminal, (fire off a nix develop if needed), and run pnpm db:push to set up your database schema.

Conclusion

That's it! You've got a fully functional Next.js app with a database and authentication set up in around three minutes. From here, you can start building out your features and customizing your app as needed.

Next Steps