Starting here
This is the bootstrap infrastructure that got my sites and apps rolling — mostly free tier, working well enough to ship under What We Mean by Bootstrap.
It is boots-on-the-ground inventory, not a sponsored stack list. Everything here still answers to the dual test. For the AI harness layer — models, Cursor, constellation — see The Gear.
Security first, then ship
Security is non-negotiable. Secrets stay vaulted. Edge and access controls earn their keep. Identity asks need a defendable reason.
Once that bar is met, I do not let “better” block “good enough.” Perfectionism after the security gate is a different failure mode — it keeps the ball from rolling while the stack you already trust sits unused.
What I am running
| Job | Vendors | Why it stayed |
|---|---|---|
| Source & ship | GitHub, GitHub Actions (GHA), Vercel | Source, PRs, CI; web hosting and previews that map cleanly to the branch ladder |
| DNS & edge | Cloudflare | Authoritative DNS (Free); Tunnel, Access, and WAF where services need protection |
| Data | Neon, Prisma | Serverless Postgres with preview/production branches; ORM and migrations in the ship path |
| Secrets | Doppler | Central config vault — runtime pulls secrets instead of scattering keys in env files |
| Communications | Resend, Twilio | Transactional email; phone validation / Verify when a product needs it |
| Mobile path | Expo Application Services (EAS) → Apple App Store, Google Play | Builds and store submit via EAS + GHA |
| Private runtime | Hostinger | Domain registrar; a Virtual Private Server (VPS) for internal tools — not part of the public STN surface |
| Legacy | Abacus | Static hosting being retired — sites migrating to GitHub + Vercel |
Compost: AceData
More anti-patterns and pruned ideas live in The Mistakes as that bed fills in.
Still sprouting
This snapshot is a seed — brief on purpose. I will expand the prose and nuance later. Vendors may change; Foundation will not. Hold this list to the dual test, not to hype.
See also: The Gear · What We Mean by Bootstrap · The Foundation · The Mistakes