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Integrations

Setting Up Supabase

Create a Supabase project and connect the right keys so your product has a database, auth, and storage.

Supabase provides the database, user authentication, and file storage for products that need to remember things: bookings, user accounts, directory listings, dashboard data. You create the Supabase project in your own Supabase account, so your data belongs to you.

Create a Supabase project

  1. Sign up or sign in at supabase.com.
  2. Create a new project. Pick a region close to your users and set a strong database password (store it somewhere safe — you will rarely need it, but Supabase cannot show it again).
  3. Wait a minute or two while the project provisions.

The four values you will work with

Supabase gives you several credentials, and it is important to understand the difference because they have very different safety profiles:

  • NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL — your project's API URL. Safe to expose in the browser.
  • NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY — the anonymous public key. Also safe for the browser. It only permits what your Row Level Security (RLS) policies allow, which is why generated projects enable RLS on every table.
  • SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY — the service role key. This bypasses RLS entirely and must only ever be used on the server. Never paste it anywhere public, never put it in client-side code, and never commit it to your repository.
  • DATABASE_URL — the direct Postgres connection string, used for migrations and server-side database access. Treat it like a password; it is server-only.
The NEXT_PUBLIC_ prefix is meaningful: anything with that prefix is compiled into the browser bundle. That is fine for the URL and anon key, and catastrophic for the service role key — which is why the service role key must never be given a NEXT_PUBLIC_ name.

Where to find them

In the Supabase dashboard, open your project, then Settings, then API for the URL, anon key, and service role key. The connection string is under Settings, then Database.

Connecting to Idea to Life

  1. In Idea to Life, go to Settings, then Integrations, then Supabase.
  2. Paste the four values into their labeled fields.
  3. Save. Keys are encrypted at rest, shown masked from then on, and are only decrypted server-side when configuring your deployment — they are never sent to your browser again.

During a build, the platform creates your tables, applies RLS policies, and wires the environment variables into Render automatically.

Costs

Supabase has a genuinely usable free tier (database, auth, and storage within limits), but free projects pause after a period of inactivity, which will make your product error until resumed. For anything customer-facing, plan on Supabase's paid tier. Check current pricing at supabase.com/pricing — we do not control it and it can change.