All workYOUNESS / WORK / SAWL2026

Realtime web platform

SAWL

A social platform for real conversation — private 1-to-1 chat and public posts — with its own admin panel, moderation system, and self-hosted backend.

Open live app View source
SAWL interface
SAWL — the live feed, as it looks today

01 / Context

What this project is solving

SAWL began as a private chat product and grew into a small social platform: a public feed with posts, reactions, and threaded comments alongside realtime 1-to-1 messaging. The important product decision is also the security decision: conversations, membership, and messages are owned by Postgres policies rather than hidden client controls. A separate admin application runs moderation, content and username rules, feature flags, platform settings, analytics, and audit logs. The web applications deploy through Vercel, while the Supabase database and supporting services are self-hosted on a server with Docker, with nightly backups and a fully audited Row Level Security model.

ConstraintKeep private conversations correct and realtime without trusting the browser to enforce membership — and grow a public surface without weakening that boundary.

02 / Architecture

How the system is arranged

01

app/

Next.js App Router: auth, feed, messenger, friends, profiles, notifications, settings, public post/profile pages, and API routes

02

components/

Feed, chat, people, profile, and settings components, with shared ui primitives (portal menus, lightbox, emoji and reaction pickers)

03

lib/

Supabase client/server/session helpers, conversations, messages, founding ranks, notification preferences, content domain, validation, and rate limiting

04

supabase/

75+ Postgres migrations — RLS policies, notification and moderation triggers, content-check functions — plus the delete-account Edge Function

05

admin panel

A separate Next.js app at admin.sawl.eddahby.me: users, reports, content & username rules, feature flags, platform settings, analytics, audit logs, system health

06

ops

Self-hosted Supabase on Docker (Oracle Cloud VM), nightly backups with 14-day retention, Vercel deployments for both apps

Your browser
sawl.eddahby.me → Vercel · Next.js app + admin panelsupabase.eddahby.me → Cloudflare → Oracle VM
Oracle VM · Docker — Caddy (TLS) → Supabase: Postgres · Auth · PostgREST · Realtime · Storage
Safety nets · hourly keep-alive · nightly backups — 14 days local + Google Drive offsite

03 / Shipped

What made it into the build

  • Public feed with posts, reactions, and threaded comments
  • Realtime 1-to-1 messaging with reactions, pins, and mute
  • A complete admin panel — moderation, feature flags, settings, analytics, audit logs
  • Content safety: username rules and a flagged-content review queue
  • Founding-member program with ranked badges for the first 100 members
  • Link previews and share cards for posts and profiles
  • Installable PWA with an offline fallback
  • Row Level Security on every table, verified by a full audit; 136 automated tests