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Atlas Whoff
Atlas Whoff

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Turborepo Monorepo Setup for SaaS: When to Use It and How to Structure It

#devops #nextjs #typescript #webdev

The Monorepo Decision

When your SaaS grows past one repo, you face a choice: separate repos for frontend/backend/packages, or a monorepo.

Here's the honest tradeoff analysis.

What a Monorepo Actually Buys You

  1. Atomic commits -- change shared types and all consumers in one PR
  2. Single source of truth -- one package.json, one tsconfig base, one CI config
  3. Easier refactoring -- rename a function across packages without cross-repo PRs
  4. Shared tooling -- ESLint, Prettier, TypeScript config set once

Turborepo Setup 

npx create-turbo@latest my-saas
cd my-saas
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my-saas/
  apps/
    web/          # Next.js app
    api/          # Express or Next.js API-only
    docs/         # Documentation site
  packages/
    ui/           # Shared React components
    types/        # Shared TypeScript types
    config/       # Shared configs (eslint, tsconfig)
    utils/        # Shared utilities
  turbo.json
  package.json
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turbo.json Configuration 

{
  "$schema": "https://turbo.build/schema.json",
  "tasks": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "outputs": [".next/**", "dist/**"]
    },
    "lint": {
      "dependsOn": ["^lint"]
    },
    "test": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "cache": false
    },
    "dev": {
      "cache": false,
      "persistent": true
    }
  }
}
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Shared Types Package 

// packages/types/src/index.ts
export interface User {
  id: string
  email: string
  name: string | null
  plan: 'free' | 'pro' | 'enterprise'
  createdAt: Date
}

export interface ApiResponse<T> {
  data?: T
  error?: string
  success: boolean
}

export interface PaginatedResponse<T> extends ApiResponse<T[]> {
  pagination: {
    page: number
    limit: number
    total: number
    hasMore: boolean
  }
}
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// packages/types/package.json
{
  "name": "@my-saas/types",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "exports": {
    ".": { "types": "./src/index.ts", "default": "./src/index.ts" }
  }
}
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Shared UI Components 

// packages/ui/src/Button.tsx
import { ButtonHTMLAttributes } from 'react'
import { cn } from './utils'

interface ButtonProps extends ButtonHTMLAttributes<HTMLButtonElement> {
  variant?: 'primary' | 'secondary' | 'ghost'
  size?: 'sm' | 'md' | 'lg'
}

export function Button({
  variant = 'primary',
  size = 'md',
  className,
  children,
  ...props
}: ButtonProps) {
  return (
    <button
      className={cn(
        'rounded-lg font-medium transition-colors',
        {
          'bg-blue-600 text-white hover:bg-blue-700': variant === 'primary',
          'bg-gray-800 text-gray-300 hover:bg-gray-700': variant === 'secondary',
          'text-gray-400 hover:text-white': variant === 'ghost',
        },
        {
          'px-3 py-1.5 text-sm': size === 'sm',
          'px-4 py-2 text-base': size === 'md',
          'px-6 py-3 text-lg': size === 'lg',
        },
        className
      )}
      {...props}
    >
      {children}
    </button>
  )
}
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CI/CD for Monorepos 

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'

      - run: npm ci

      # Turborepo only rebuilds what changed
      - run: npx turbo build lint test
        env:
          TURBO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TURBO_TOKEN }}
          TURBO_TEAM: ${{ secrets.TURBO_TEAM }}
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When NOT to Use a Monorepo

  • Solo project with one app (overkill)
  • Different teams with different release cadences
  • Repos need different access controls
  • Sub-100ms CI times already (Turbo caching overhead)

Ship the Right Architecture from Day One

The AI SaaS Starter Kit is a single-repo setup optimized for solo founders -- no monorepo overhead until you need it.

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