Neon Quickstart: Connecting MTVL

Follow these steps to provision a Neon database and connect your MTVL backend in under 5 minutes.

Step 1: Create a Neon Project

Option A: Via Neon Web Console

Navigate to console.neon.tech and sign in.
Click Create Project.
Name your project (e.g. mtvl-production).
Select your preferred Cloud Region (e.g., AWS us-east-2 or AWS eu-central-1) and PostgreSQL version (16 or 17).
Click Create Project.

Option B: Via Neon CLI

# Install Neon CLI
npm install -g neonctl

# Authenticate
neonctl auth

# Create new project
neonctl projects create --name mtvl-production

Step 2: Obtain Connection String (DSN)

In your Neon Dashboard:

Navigate to the Connection Details widget.
Select your branch (e.g. main) and database (e.g. neondb).
Toggle Connection Pooling ON.
Copy the connection URI:

postgres://user:password@ep-xyz-pooler.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/neondb?sslmode=require

:::important SSL Requirement Neon requires SSL connections. Ensure sslmode=require is appended to your DSN connection string. :::

Step 3: Configure MTVL Environment Variables

Set the following environment variables when running MTVL:

export DB_DRIVER="postgres"
export DB_DSN="postgres://alex:secretpassword@ep-icy-pond-123456-pooler.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/neondb?sslmode=require"
export JWT_SECRET="your-256-bit-secret-key-here"
export SERVER_PORT="8080"

Step 4: Run the Backend & Verify Migrations

Start the backend:

go run main.go

The output will confirm successful connection and automatic Goose migration execution:

2026/09/20 03:30:00 [Init] Starting backend server on port 8080
2026/09/20 03:30:00 [Init] Database driver: postgres, DSN: postgres://...
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [DB] Connected to database successfully
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Goose] Applied migration: 20260804191235_users.sql
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Goose] Applied migration: 20260804191237_movies.sql
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Goose] Applied migration: 20260804191238_tv_shows.sql
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Goose] Applied migration: 20260804191240_books.sql
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Auth] Initialized Built-in JWT Auth Provider
2026/09/20 03:30:01 [Server] Listening on :8080

​Neon Quickstart: Connecting MTVL

​Step 1: Create a Neon Project

​Option A: Via Neon Web Console

​Option B: Via Neon CLI

​Step 2: Obtain Connection String (DSN)

​Step 3: Configure MTVL Environment Variables

​Step 4: Run the Backend & Verify Migrations