2.1 Why Supabase?
Giving Amy a Brain.
Imagine hiring a brilliant assistant who reads every email instantly and works 24/7, but suffers from severe short-term memory loss. Once she finishes a task, she forgets it ever happened.
That is what n8n (our automation tool) is on its own. It processes data in the moment, but it has no memory.
To build a true Digital Employee, we need to give her a Long-Term Memory. She needs to remember:
Who is this agent?
What is the status of 123 Maple Ave?
When is the inspection due?
We use Supabase to be that memory.
Why we build this FIRST
You might be tempted to jump straight into n8n and start building cool automation workflows. Don't.
You cannot build the Workflows until you have a place to store the Data.
When an email arrives, n8n needs to ask: "Do we have a deal for this sender?" (It asks Supabase).
When a document is signed, n8n needs to say: "Mark the NHD task as Complete." (It tells Supabase).
If you skip this step, you are building a house without a foundation.
Why Supabase? (vs. Airtable or Google Sheets)
You might ask: "Why not just use a Google Sheet? It's easier." For a hobby project, sure. For a Compliance-Heavy Real Estate Service, absolutely not.
We chose Supabase for three specific reasons:
1. The "Liability Shield" (Row Level Security) Real estate deals contain sensitive financial data (Social Security numbers, bank statements). Supabase has a superpower called RLS (Row Level Security). It allows us to write a rule at the database level that says:
"Agent A can NEVER see Agent B's deals."
Even if our code has a bug, the database itself will reject the request. This is how we avoid getting sued.
2. It speaks "Robot" Airtable is built for humans to click around. It has rate limits and can be slow for code. Supabase is PostgreSQL—the industry standard database. It handles thousands of requests per second from our AI without breaking a sweat.
3. It’s the "Source of Truth" We will eventually sync this data to Airtable so you (the human) can look at it nicely. But the Master Copy lives in Supabase. This ensures that no matter what interface we build in the future (a mobile app, a web dashboard), the data remains secure and structured.
Summary
n8n is the Worker (The Hands).
Supabase is the Memory (The Brain).
We build the Brain first.