Prepare Production Services and Environment Variables

Task

Prepare the services that the deployed Next.js application will use.

The production architecture is:

Vercel
  └── Next.js application

External PostgreSQL
  └── persistent database

S3-compatible object storage
  └── persistent EPUB files and covers

Do not plan to run SeaweedFS as a persistent service inside Vercel. SeaweedFS is the local development object-storage service; production should use a separately managed persistent S3-compatible store.

Configure production values for:

DATABASE_URL=
SESSION_SECRET=
S3_ENDPOINT=
S3_REGION=
S3_ACCESS_KEY=
S3_SECRET_KEY=
S3_BUCKET=

Provision the production bucket separately rather than relying on an application startup action.

Never commit production credentials.

Test

Confirm:

• the production database is reachable from the deployment environment
• the production storage bucket exists
• credentials are stored in the deployment platform’s secret/environment settings
• .env files are not committed
• local development values remain separate

Checkpoint

The production service boundary is clear and all required environment values are prepared without committing secrets.