Case study
Saravá: client CMS on Vercel for a cultural center
Espacio Cultural Saravá is a community center in Bolívar, Buenos Aires. The live product is a Next.js app on Vercel with a Clerk admin CMS, Neon/Prisma content, Vercel Blob media, and reader comments. v1 was a static GitHub Pages export with JSON-in-Git; this case centers on the CMS that replaced it.
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1. Problem
Organizers needed to publish posts, novels, events, and branding without editing JSON in pull requests. They also wanted media uploads and reader comments on radio, podcast, and cultural posts.
A full rebuild was off the table. The job was to move the existing public site onto a hosted runtime, add authenticated publishing, and keep the cultural sections (radio, podcast, reading club, espacio cultural) intact.
2. Architecture
Next.js App Router on Vercel; Neon Postgres via Prisma; Clerk for admin allowlist and reader auth; Vercel Blob for images:
- Public App Router sections for radio, podcast, reading club, cultural space, and about, plus dynamic post routes with per-entry metadata.
- /admin behind a Clerk allowlist: CRUD for posts, novels, events, team, and branding.
- Prisma models on Neon for content and comments; no JSON-in-Git as the source of truth.
- Vercel Blob for image uploads with admin previews before publish.
3. Admin CMS
Client admins publish from the browser. Auth is an allowlist, not a free-for-all signup:
- Clerk gates /admin; only listed accounts reach the CMS.
- Image previews and a visual team editor so branding updates do not require hand-edited JSON.
- Featured flags drive an adaptive hero that only shows spotlighted content.
- GitHub Actions runs lint and a production build on every push.
4. Community layer
Readers can participate without touching the admin surface:
- Reader auth via Clerk for comments on posts, novela, radio, and podcast pages.
- Spotify show link on the podcast surface.
- Featured-only hero so empty slots do not dilute the homepage.
- Admin multi-theme picker for pastel palette previews.
5. v1 → v2
v1 solved zero-cost hosting and per-post SEO with Next.js static export to GitHub Pages and Zod-validated JSON. That was the right first ship. Authenticated publishing and Blob media needed a hosted runtime.
- v1: static export, GH Pages, JSON-in-Git, Zod content validation in CI.
- v2: drop static-only export; deploy Next.js on Vercel with Neon and Blob.
- Public section IA and per-post SEO patterns carried forward into the runtime app.
- Live URL is the Vercel deployment, not the old github.io path.
Honest scope: this is a freelance client commission in production, not a high-traffic SaaS. The upgrade path from static hub to CMS is the engineering story.
6. Outcomes
- Client admins publish from /admin with image previews and a visual team editor.
- Live app on Vercel with Neon + Blob instead of static GitHub Pages only.
- Reader comments on posts, radio, and podcast, plus a featured-only adaptive hero.
- CI covers lint and production build on the CMS codebase.