What is Hype Stack
Hype Stack is two things that work together.
The first is the starter: a free, open-source full-stack codebase with a React 19 frontend, a Hono backend on Postgres, a desktop build, an Expo mobile app, a browser extension, and the types, tests, and local infrastructure already wired between them. You can clone it today and it runs.
The second is a catalog of features you install into that starter with one CLI command. Auth, organizations, billing,
notifications, and collaboration arrive as source files in your repository, not as a dependency in your package.json.
Pick the ones you need, skip the rest, and edit any of it afterwards.
The starter ships without those features on purpose. It is a blank canvas that already knows how to be an app.
The three pieces
| Piece | What it is | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | The skeleton: monorepo, frontend, backend, Docker services, CI, end-to-end types | Free and open source |
| Packs | One feature each: a SaaS starter, a layout, or something like billing | Paid once, 12 months of downloads |
| Templates | A curated bundle of packs plus a theme, a landing page, and extra screens | Paid once, 12 months of downloads |
Selling packs is what funds the open-source starter. The free core stays free.
Packs
A pack is a feature delivered as files. There are nine today, in three categories.
SaaS starters decide how identity works, and everything else builds on one of them. starter-saas-workos and
starter-saas-betterauth both give you email and social login, organizations with members and invitations, roles and
permissions enforced on the server and mirrored in the UI, encrypted sessions, and a separate admin app with users,
orgs, and a dashboard. You install exactly one.
Layouts decide how the app is shelled: the sidebar, the navigation, the settings pages. layout-basic,
layout-glass, layout-joyful, and layout-native-app-shell are interchangeable, so you can swap the whole look
without touching feature code.
Feature packs are the drop-ins. pack-billing-stripe handles plans, checkout, the customer portal, and webhook
retries. pack-teams adds teams and team invites, pack-projects adds projects and member roles. pack-notifications
adds in-app and email notifications over websockets.
Browse them all on the packs page, where every pack has a live preview you can click through before buying.
Templates
A template is an opinionated product on top of the starter: a SaaS starter pack, a layout, the feature packs that fit, a custom theme, and screens built for one kind of product.
| Template | What it is |
|---|---|
| Better Studio | Multi-tenant SaaS with auth, billing, and a unified app shell |
| Open Calendar | Scheduling product built around a calendar with five views and drag-and-drop |
| Aether | AI agent product where the dashboard is an agent chat that runs tools |
| Vault | Workflow automation with connected tools, tracking, and approvals |
| Mind Map | Collaborative whiteboard synced live over websockets |
Every template page has a recording of the real app running, so you can judge it before you spend anything.
How you build with it
# Start from a curated product
npx @hype-stack/cli template aether
# Or pick packs yourself, interactively
npx @hype-stack/cli compose
# Or take the bare starter with nothing added
npx @hype-stack/cli create my-appYou rarely need `create` on its own
Run template or compose in an empty directory and the CLI scaffolds the project first, then installs what you
picked. Reach for create when you want the empty canvas and nothing else.
compose does more than copy files. It resolves what a pack depends on, checks your license, writes the source into
your repo, runs codemods so the new code is wired into your existing routes and navigation, merges the Prisma schema,
and records the result in stack.json. Then onboard walks you through the environment variables
the new packs need.
Add a pack in month six and the same thing happens. The CLI keeps working after day one.
What "you own the code" means
Packs are copied, not installed, the same way shadcn/ui works. That has consequences worth being clear about:
- No runtime dependency on us. Your app does not call our servers or import our packages. Delete the CLI and the app keeps running.
- No version lock. The files are yours. Rename things, delete half of a feature, restyle all of it. Nothing breaks upstream.
- One payment, 12 months of downloads. A license with unlimited CLI downloads for a year: install a pack on as many of your own projects as you like, and pull every update we ship during that year.
- Code you pulled is yours forever. The 12 month term gates new downloads, not what is already in your repository. When it ends you keep shipping, selling, and editing everything you installed. You renew only if you want the next year of updates and new packs. See pricing for the tiers and how team seats work.
- The trade-off is upgrades. Because you own the files, improvements we ship later do not arrive automatically. You re-run the CLI and merge what you want, like any vendored code.
Who it's for
People shipping a product where the product is the business: a SaaS with users, organizations, billing, and a real backend. Solo founders who do not want to spend two weeks on plumbing, and small teams who want a codebase with conventions from the first commit.
It is also built to be worked on with AI. The repo ships editor rules for Cursor, T3 Code, Claude, Codex, Copilot, OpenCode, and Windsurf, as many at once as your team needs, and the structure is regular enough that an agent can find its way around. See working with AI.
When it is the wrong tool
- A marketing site or a blog. Use Astro or a static site generator. This is an application stack.
- A small internal CRUD tool over an API you already have. Something like Refine will get you there faster.
- You want a platform that also hosts and deploys for you. Hype Stack gives you a repository and two Docker containers. Where they run is your call, which is the point, but it is work an AI app builder would do for you.
How the pieces connect
Once a starter is installed, the monorepo looks like this at runtime:
The frontend and admin are separate Vite apps, the mobile app is Expo, and the extension is its own Vite build per
browser. The backend is a Node Hono server. Postgres, Valkey, and object storage run in Docker locally, or on Fly /
Railway when you deploy. The CLI (@hype-stack/cli) and the pack registry live outside your project. They write files
into it, then get out of the way.
How to use these docs
If you are onboarding, read in this order:
- Installation or Fastest Template
- Technologies for the stack and runtime boundaries
- CLI for
create,compose,template,onboard, anddeploy - Frontend, Backend, and Mobile when you change app code
- Packs and templates setup for credentials and env vars per feature
After that, jump to the system you are changing: Authentication, Organizations, Billing, or Going to production.
Where to go next
- Fastest Template: a running app in about a minute.
- Technologies: every library in the stack, the repo layout, and why each piece is there.
- Add a template and add a pack: the CLI in detail.
- Packs and templates setup: the external accounts and environment variables each one needs.
Every purchase and sponsorship funds my 8+ years of work on open source given freely to the community. It keeps the lights on, funds new packs, and keeps the ecosystem alive. Even a small tier means a lot. Thank you!