CASE STUDY / 03

ScholarSafe

A platform for students to find housing, compare roommate compatibility, and message each other. As co-founder and engineering lead, I build its core workflows, verification, moderation, and database access controls.

TYPEFull-stack product

STATUSPrivate / active

STACKNext.js / Supabase / Postgres

FOCUSProduct + security

01 / PROBLEM

Housing marketplaces need more than listings.

For students, trust is part of the product. ScholarSafe combines listing discovery with verified roles, roommate compatibility, saved searches, messaging, moderation, and database-level security so the core workflows do not depend on client-side trust.

IDENTITY

Verified roles

Landlord and student capabilities are modeled separately with pending/verified states.

MATCHING

Explainable roommate fit

Weighted compatibility scoring exposes reasons and blocks hard incompatibilities.

SECURITY

RLS-first access

Supabase row-level policies constrain reads/writes close to the data boundary.

OPERATIONS

Production discipline

CI, rate limits, audit logging, moderation confirmations, and deployment checks are part of the product.

02 / ARCHITECTURE

The system boundary is explicit.

Next.js appsearch
matching
messaging

→

SupabaseAuth
Postgres
Realtime
RLS

→

External servicesResend
Turnstile
Vercel

The application layer can request operations, but database policies enforce ownership and role boundaries independently of UI state.

03 / DECISIONS

Engineering choices that matter.

Push authorization toward the databaseSensitive reads and writes are not protected only by route code or hidden UI controls.

Make matching explainableUsers can see why a roommate match scored well rather than receiving an opaque number.

Treat moderation as stateful workflowActions that affect other users require explicit confirmation and auditable transitions.

Build the boring production piecesRate limiting, email confirmation, audit logs, regression tests, and deployment checks matter as much as the landing page.

04 / LINKS

Inspect the work.

Live project ↗GitHub profile ↗