LMS (learning platform) on React Router v8, Postgres (Neon) and Better Auth
Type-checked against the real SDKs, migration applied to a live Postgres (Neon), connection clients load-tested, then tracked for upstream drift and re-verified when it moves. How we verify
session validation runs in server components and route handlers, not at the edge
What you're getting
React Router v8 (framework mode) — SSR, config/file routes under app/, loaders/actions, and resource routes for API endpoints.
Postgres on Neon via Drizzle ORM and the postgres-js driver.
Better Auth — self-hosted auth running inside your app against your Postgres (Drizzle adapter).
Learning platform — course catalog (courses → modules → lessons), enrollment join, and per-lesson learner progress tracking.
Setup
bun add react-router react react-dom drizzle-orm postgres better-authDATABASE_URLNeon pooled (-pooler) connection stringBETTER_AUTH_SECRETgenerate with `openssl rand -base64 32`BETTER_AUTH_URLyour app's base URLApply the schema with bunx drizzle-kit push
Initialization
Database client
LMS schema: courses, modules, lessons, enrollments & progress
Courses & instructorscatalog root with slug unique index, status CHECK, and FK to the Better Auth instructor user
Modules & lessonsordered curriculum units — modules by position within a course, lessons by position within a module with contentType CHECK
Enrollmentscourse↔student join with composite unique enforcing one enrollment per pair
Lesson progress trackingper-learner, per-lesson state rows with status CHECK and composite unique on (studentId, lessonId)
Deploy targets
Decisions and compatibility
Framework mode (not data/library mode): routes live under app/, declared in app/routes.ts. API endpoints are resource routes (a route module exporting loader/action but no default component).
prepare: false is mandatory — Neon's pooled endpoint is PgBouncer in transaction mode, where server-side prepared statements break across the pool.
Drizzle is paired here (not Prisma): Prisma's prepared-statement reliance is incompatible with transaction-mode pooling.
Self-hosted: Better Auth owns the user/session/account/verification tables. This stack emits them (db/auth-schema.ts) and hands them to the Drizzle adapter, so app-type schemas can foreign-key `user` directly.
Enrollments carry a composite unique on (courseId, studentId) — re-enrolling the same student in the same course is a constraint violation, not a duplicate row.
lessonProgress uses text + CHECK over pgEnum for status, keeping 'not_started'/'in_progress'/'completed' extensible without an ALTER TYPE migration.