Use Supabase with TanStack Start

<$Partial path="quickstart_db_setup.mdx" />

3. Create a TanStack Start app

Create a TanStack Start app using the official CLI.

npx @tanstack/cli@latest create my-app

4. Install Supabase's Agent Skills (optional)

Supabase's Agent Skills is a curated set of instructions that give your AI agent procedural knowledge about working with Supabase.

Install them so your AI coding agent can produce more accurate, reliable code using current Supabase patterns, such as authentication, server-side rendering, and database migrations, rather than relying solely on training data.

To install, run the following command in the root of your project:

npx skills add supabase/agent-skills

5. Install the Supabase client libraries

Navigate to the TanStack Start app and install supabase-js and @supabase/ssr, the helper package that manages cookie-based sessions for server-side rendering.

cd my-app && npm install @supabase/supabase-js @supabase/ssr

6. Declare Supabase environment variables

Create a .env.local file in the root of your project and populate it with your Supabase connection variables. Get the values from the helper below, or from the project Connect panel.

VITE_SUPABASE_URL=<SUBSTITUTE_SUPABASE_URL>
VITE_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=<SUBSTITUTE_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY>

<$Partial path="api_settings.mdx" variables={{ "framework": "tanstack", "tab": "frameworks" }} />

7. Create Supabase client utilities

TanStack Start needs two Supabase clients: a browser client for components that run in the browser, and a server client for loaders and server functions. Create a src/lib/supabase folder with a file for each client.

/// <reference types="vite/types/importMeta.d.ts" />
import { createBrowserClient } from '@supabase/ssr'

export function createClient() {
  return createBrowserClient(
    import.meta.env.VITE_SUPABASE_URL!,
    import.meta.env.VITE_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY!
  )
}

import { createServerClient } from '@supabase/ssr'
import { getCookies, setCookie, setResponseHeader } from '@tanstack/react-start/server'

export function createClient() {
  return createServerClient(
    process.env.VITE_SUPABASE_URL!,
    process.env.VITE_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY!,
    {
      cookies: {
        getAll() {
          return Object.entries(getCookies()).map(([name, value]) => ({ name, value }))
        },
        setAll(cookies, headers) {
          cookies.forEach(({ name, value, options }) => {
            setCookie(name, value, options)
          })

          Object.entries(headers).forEach(([name, value]) => {
            setResponseHeader(name, value)
          })
        },
      },
    }
  )
}

8. Query Supabase data from TanStack Start

Replace the contents of src/routes/index.tsx with the following to add a loader that queries the instruments table through the server client. The loader runs on the server, so the data is part of the initial server-rendered response.

import { createFileRoute } from '@tanstack/react-router'

import { createClient } from '@/lib/supabase/server'

export const Route = createFileRoute('/')({
  loader: async () => {
    const supabase = createClient()
    const { data: instruments } = await supabase.from('instruments').select()
    return { instruments }
  },
  component: Home,
})

function Home() {
  const { instruments } = Route.useLoaderData()

  return (
    <ul>
      {instruments?.map((instrument) => (
        <li key={instrument.name}>{instrument.name}</li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  )
}

9. Start the app

Run the development server, go to http://localhost:3000 in a browser and you should see the list of instruments.

npm run dev

Next steps

• Learn how to protect routes and check sessions with the server client
• Set up a complete login and sign-up flow from the Supabase UI Library
• Explore drop-in UI components for your Supabase app
• Insert more data into your database
• Upload and serve static files using Storage