Keeping the scaffold intentionally narrow is the right instinct. I'd keep validating where developers actually stop needing "just auth" and start rebuilding the missing pieces. That boundary is what determines whether the free scaffold becomes a growth engine for the full kit or a complete substitute for it.
That's exactly the balance I'm trying to strike. The scaffold is intentionally focused on getting session authentication right, but I don't want to artificially hold anything back just to create an upgrade path. My goal is for the free version to stand on its own, and for the paid kit to become the natural next step only when someone genuinely needs features like OAuth, email verification, roles, or an admin panel. It'll be interesting to see where developers naturally draw that line. Thanks for the perspective!
One thing I'd keep watching is whether the upgrade happens because developers hit a missing feature or because the product becomes part of a larger workflow they don't want to rebuild themselves.
Those are different signals, and the second one usually creates stronger product pull.
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The session layer was the part I kept explaining most in my Auth Kit. So I made it a free standalone scaffold: JWT sessions, bcrypt, strict TypeScript. No black boxes.
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Keeping the scaffold intentionally narrow is the right instinct. I'd keep validating where developers actually stop needing "just auth" and start rebuilding the missing pieces. That boundary is what determines whether the free scaffold becomes a growth engine for the full kit or a complete substitute for it.
That's exactly the balance I'm trying to strike. The scaffold is intentionally focused on getting session authentication right, but I don't want to artificially hold anything back just to create an upgrade path. My goal is for the free version to stand on its own, and for the paid kit to become the natural next step only when someone genuinely needs features like OAuth, email verification, roles, or an admin panel. It'll be interesting to see where developers naturally draw that line. Thanks for the perspective!
That makes sense.
One thing I'd keep watching is whether the upgrade happens because developers hit a missing feature or because the product becomes part of a larger workflow they don't want to rebuild themselves.
Those are different signals, and the second one usually creates stronger product pull.