EternaVault

Inspiration

Builders Week encourages learning by building real, useful applications. While exploring meaningful problems that could be solved within a short hackathon timeframe, we noticed a very real gap: there is no simple, secure, and beginner-friendly way for people to store and pass on their digital memories and important files.

Most existing solutions are either too complex, unsafe, or not designed for inheritance at all. This inspired us to build EternaVault—a practical project that demonstrates how modern tools like Supabase can be used to solve a real human problem while still being achievable and polished within a one-week online hackathon.

What it does

EternaVault is a digital legacy vault that allows users to securely store encrypted files and memories and assign trusted heirs to access them in the future.

Users upload files that are encrypted directly in the browser, ensuring privacy by default. The encrypted data is stored using Supabase, and access is controlled through clearly defined rules. When conditions are met, heirs can securely retrieve and decrypt the files client-side.

The project focuses on:

Real-world usefulness
Simple, understandable flows
Strong security without over-complexity

How we built it

We built EternaVault as a full-stack web application using tools encouraged by the hackathon:

Frontend: React + Vite for a fast and simple user experience
Authentication: Supabase Auth for secure user management
Storage: Supabase Storage for encrypted file uploads
Database: Supabase Postgres to store metadata such as vault ownership, heirs, and access status
Security: Client-side AES-GCM encryption to ensure Supabase never sees plaintext data
Deployment: Vercel for seamless deployment and sharing

Supabase acted as the core backend platform, allowing us to quickly build, iterate, and ship a working application within the Builders Week timeframe.

Challenges we ran into

Ensuring files were encrypted before being uploaded to Supabase
Designing a clean and intuitive UI while handling sensitive workflows
Structuring Supabase tables to manage access logic clearly
Balancing ambition with what could realistically be built and deployed during the hackathon

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built and deployed a complete Supabase-powered application on Vercel within one week
Successfully integrated Supabase Auth, Storage, and Database in a meaningful way
Implemented privacy-first, client-side encryption
Delivered a project that solves a real problem and aligns with the hackathon’s learning-by-building goal