// the find
async-labs/builderbook
Open source web application to learn JS stack: React, Material-UI, Next.js, Node.js, Express.js, Mongoose, MongoDB database.
A full-stack JavaScript learning project that doubles as a working book-selling platform. It walks you through building a Next.js/Express app with Google OAuth, GitHub content syncing, and Stripe payments — the repo contains both the finished app and chapter-by-chapter code snapshots used by the accompanying paid book.
The chapter-by-chapter folder structure (book/1-begin, book/1-end, etc.) is genuinely useful for learners — you can diff any two folders to see exactly what changed. The integration surface is wide: OAuth, payments, email, GitHub API, and Mailchimp are all wired up in a real, running app rather than toy demos. MongoDB schema design with Mongoose is shown in a context where it actually matters (user roles, purchase records, content access). Deployment to Heroku including subdirectory buildpacks is documented clearly and was clearly tested by the authors.
The stack is showing its age — this is pre-App Router Next.js with a custom Express server, a pattern Next.js deprecated years ago. Anyone learning from this today will hit friction the moment they try to apply the patterns to a current project. MongoDB with Mongoose was the obvious choice in 2018; in 2025 most people would reach for Postgres, and the repo gives no indication of why the choice was made. Last meaningful activity was years ago despite the March 2025 push date — the open issues and PR backlog suggest maintenance has effectively stopped. There are no tests beyond a single slugify utility test, which is a missed teaching opportunity for a repo explicitly aimed at people learning how to build production apps.