Technical Documentation

Technical documentation for developers working on Z8, a Turborepo monorepo with product, docs, marketing, extension, mobile, and desktop applications.

Getting Started

Prerequisites, development workflow, and code quality standards

Database Schema

Core tables, canonical time records, and Drizzle ORM

Authentication

Better Auth, secure sessions, invitations, and app access control

Services & Infrastructure

Notifications, storage, background jobs, queues, and export orchestration

Features & Compliance

Canonical time, approvals, work policies, and payroll export architecture

Enterprise Features

API keys, webhooks, SCIM, social OAuth, and app access control

Testing & Deployment

Unit tests, E2E testing, and deployment configuration

Architecture

Z8 is built as a Turborepo monorepo, managing shared logic and multiple application targets.

App	Path	Description
Web	`apps/webapp`	Next.js 16 application for the main product UI and HTTP APIs.
Marketing	`apps/marketing`	Next.js 16 marketing site for public-facing pages.
Mobile	`apps/mobile`	Expo mobile app for on-the-go time tracking and employee workflows.
Desktop	`apps/desktop`	Tauri desktop app for lightweight workstation workflows.
Extension	`apps/extension`	Vite-based browser extension workspace.
Docs	`apps/docs`	Next.js 16 + Fumadocs site for technical and product documentation.

Monorepo Structure

The tree below is a simplified view of the current top-level app layout, not a full file listing:

turbo.json

package.json

Tech Stack

Frameworks: Next.js 16 for web and docs, Expo for mobile, Tauri for desktop
Language: TypeScript, plus Rust for Tauri internals
Database: PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM
Auth: Better Auth with passkeys, 2FA, social OAuth, and organization-scoped auth extensions
Styling: Tailwind CSS v4 and shadcn/ui
State Management: Effect services for server-side orchestration
Date/Time: Luxon DateTime
Monorepo Tooling: Turborepo with pnpm workspaces

Service Architecture

The application uses Effect-driven services and focused domain modules for orchestration, authorization, notifications, and background work.

analytics.service.ts

app-access.service.ts

auth.service.ts

authorization.service.ts

change-policy.service.ts

email.service.ts

onboarding.service.ts

permissions.service.ts

reporting.service.ts

time-entry.service.ts

time-record.service.ts

work-policy.service.ts

Key Libraries

Library	Purpose
Effect	Type-safe service composition
Luxon	Timezone-aware date/time handling
TanStack Form	Form state management
BullMQ	Background job processing
Better Auth	Authentication, organizations, passkeys, and enterprise auth features
Fumadocs	Documentation rendering for the docs app