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Case 006 — Health programs platform
All workPublic tools and editorial bring clients in. A members area — login, paid programs, structured content delivery — keeps them. One Next.js app on Cloudflare runs both surfaces, with the paywall as a content layer rather than a feature flag.
Architecture · 8 layers · request flows left to right
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Cloudflare
- R2
- PostgreSQL
- Stripe
- Lucia auth
- Resend
/ 01Outcomes
Multi-track
Program tracks live
structured programs behind the paywall
Session cookies
Auth surface
Lucia-style, HttpOnly, rotated on login
Webhook + reconcile
Payment retries
Stripe events keyed by event.id, deduped at DB
5 dims
Tool quality bar
function · ease · UI · education · report
/ 02The brief
Bassam Mallick sells structured health programs. The site has to do two jobs without either undermining the other — earn trust on the open web with evidence-grade tools and editorial, then sell and deliver paid programs behind a login. We built both surfaces as one Next.js app on Cloudflare, with shared content primitives and a members area that treats program access as data, not a marketing toggle.
/ 03Architecture
Public surface — Next.js on Cloudflare
Marketing pages, the editorial line, and the public tools (BMI as the reference standard, others built to clear the same bar). Static where possible, edge-rendered where the tool needs it. The role of this surface is to be good enough on its own that paying for the programs is the next step, not the only reason to be there.
- Tools shipped at premium-product quality, not lead-magnet quality
- Editorial line: if you cannot cite it, do not say it
- Clean route boundary between public and /members
Client portal — auth, sessions, account state
A members area at /members guarded by session cookies. Login, password reset, and email verification go through Resend. Sessions are HttpOnly, rotated on login, and bound to a server-side store so revocation is one DB write. The portal lists the programs the client has access to and resumes them where they left off.
- Custom auth flow rather than a third-party hosted login (kept on the same Next runtime)
- Server-side session validation on every members route
- Account, billing, and program-access views as first-class pages
Payments and program access — Stripe + webhook reconcile
Stripe Checkout for purchase. The webhook handler writes to an append-only events table keyed on event.id so re-delivery is safe, then reconciles into a program_access table that the portal reads. Access is granted by data, not by a session flag — refunds and chargebacks remove access by the same path.
- Checkout-driven, not in-app card capture
- program_access rows are the source of truth, not Stripe metadata
- Failed-payment recovery handled by Stripe's own retry schedule, then a final email through Resend
Program content delivery — DB-structured, R2-backed assets
Each program is a structured object in PostgreSQL — modules, lessons, completion state, ordering — with media (video, PDF, audio) stored in R2 and served through signed URLs scoped to the authenticated session. New programs ship by writing data, not by deploying a new page tree.
/ 04Build highlights
01
Paywall as a content layer, not a feature flag
Program access lives in its own table and is checked at the data layer. There is no "if user.tier === pro" sprinkled through components — a page either has rows to render or it does not.
02
Tools that earn the email
The public tools are not three-input calculators with a signup wall. They produce a clinical-grade report layer on their own; the members area is offered as the next step, not the price of entry.
03
Program completion as a first-class entity
Lessons, modules, and completion state are modelled in PostgreSQL so resume, progress, and access revocation all read from one place. The portal shows progress; the admin view reads the same rows.
04
Evidence-backed editorial line
Every claim on the public site is linked to its source. The same discipline carries into the program copy behind the paywall — clients see the same standard they were sold on.
05
One runtime, two surfaces
Public tools and the members portal are the same Next.js app on Cloudflare Workers. Shared primitives, shared design language, no second deploy target to keep in sync.
06
Transactional email as part of the product
Verification, password reset, receipt, and access-granted emails go through Resend on templates that match the site, not on a generic SaaS chrome.
/ 05What it became
The site now runs as a working membership business for Bassam — public tools and editorial pull traffic, Stripe Checkout converts it, the members area delivers the programs the client paid for, and access state lives in data that the portal, the admin, and the webhook handler all read from the same place.