Supabase

Supabase

Supabase is an optional backend accelerator, not a required part of every React experience.

Product Team members should not need to write SQL or backend code manually. The coding agent may use Supabase MCP/CLI and project tooling to create the backend, but all durable backend work must remain inspectable, reproducible, and reusable in source control.

When to use

Use Supabase when the experience benefits from one or more of:

• persistent/shared data;
• authentication or role-aware behavior;
• file/storage workflows;
• relational business data;
• server-side functions or protected operations;
• realistic backend behavior needed for stakeholder validation.

For UI-only work, prefer mock data and skip Supabase.

Production-continuation contract

When Supabase is used, preserve in the repository as applicable:

• supabase/migrations/ and SQL;
• RLS policies and authorization assumptions;
• seed/demo application data that is safe to share;
• generated database types;
• frontend API/data contracts;
• Edge Functions or other server-side logic;
• environment variable requirements;
• notes for any remote-only resource that cannot be fully represented as code.

These artifacts are developer-owned assets. Developers may keep Supabase for production, harden the implementation, or migrate to another backend while retaining business rules, SQL/data modeling knowledge, API contracts, and frontend boundaries.

Frontend placement — Feature-Sliced Design

Greenfield Product-Skills React projects follow FSD v2.1.

• Supabase client/provider infrastructure → shared/api/.
• Auth session/token/client infrastructure → shared/auth/.
• Generic CRUD transport/query functions → shared/api/.
• Single-page product logic that consumes Supabase stays in the owning pages/<page>/ slice.
• Extract a reusable interaction to features/ only when it is currently reused across multiple pages.
• Extract stable reusable domain models to entities/ only when current reuse justifies the boundary.
• Never put business rules into shared/ merely because they touch the backend.

Do not call Supabase directly from page UI components. Page/feature model code should consume a focused lower-layer API boundary.

Auth and demo-data rules

• Never commit a real/shared demo password, access token, service-role key, or reusable credential to the repository.
• .env.example contains variable names or obvious placeholders only. Browser-safe URLs/project refs are not secrets, but reusable templates should not be unnecessarily bound to one remote project.
• Prefer seed files for application data. Create demo auth users through an explicit local/non-production setup script, Auth API, CLI-supported workflow, or user sign-up rather than treating Supabase internal auth tables as a portable application seed contract.
• Email/password sign-up must handle both Supabase outcomes: an immediate session when confirmation is disabled, or session = null with a clear check your email state when confirmation is enabled.
• Do not assume an account can sign in immediately after signUp.

RLS verification

Writing policies is not proof that authorization works.

When RLS protects user- or role-sensitive data, verify at least:

1. the authorized principal can perform the intended operation;
2. another authenticated principal cannot read/change the protected row;
3. unauthenticated access is rejected when the feature requires authentication.

For CRUD, exercise the business-critical operations against the real policy boundary. Do not mark RLS verified because the SQL looks correct.

Safety

• Use browser-safe/publishable credentials only in frontend code.
• Never expose service-role or other privileged keys to the browser.
• Add RLS for user/role-sensitive access when relevant.
• Never make remote MCP changes the only record of a schema or backend change.
• Destructive or production-impact changes require explicit approval.
• Surface Supabase security/advisor warnings. A non-critical hardening warning may be deferred for PREVIEW_READY, but production-relevant warnings must be resolved or explicitly recorded before DEV_READY.

Tool policy

Use whichever path is fastest without losing reproducibility:

• Supabase MCP for remote project/database context and supported actions;
• Supabase CLI for local development, migrations, linking, and reproducible workflows;
• version-controlled SQL/migrations as the durable source of truth.

A repository may keep Supabase MCP read-only by default and enable scoped write access for a non-production project when useful.

Suggested repository shape

supabase/
├── config.toml
├── migrations/
├── functions/       # only when server-side functions are needed
└── seed.sql          # optional application data only

Frontend example:

src/
├── app/
├── pages/
└── shared/
    ├── api/          # Supabase client + generic CRUD transport
    └── auth/         # session/auth infrastructure

Completion

Before sharing, verify the required backend journey actually works. When auth/RLS matters, include negative authorization evidence rather than only happy-path CRUD. FSD architecture validation must also pass. Before DEV_READY, verify a developer can understand/reproduce the data model and backend logic from repository artifacts rather than relying on hidden remote state.

Standard resources

Use templates, references, and evaluations for scope and exit evidence.