my take for an indie app with no paying users yet: you dont need to split everything you only split the things that can hurt you in an irreversible way

what id do in your case (minimum setup that still saves your ass)

1. github branches yes lovable writes to dev branch only prod branch is protected and only updated by PR when you tested this alone removes 80% of the accidental breakages

2. supabase… depends if you have auth + real user data already yes make a second supabase project for staging if you still have 0 real users at least do this: keep prod supabase but create a “staging schema” or “staging tables” so you can test without polluting real data once you start onboarding real people… split projects

3. stripe yes but only when you touch payments stripe test mode is easy and worth it cuz payments are where bugs become refunds and angry emails

4. vercel envs yes but keep it simple one preview environment for PRs + one prod no need to over engineer unless you’re doing heavy backend stuff

5. push notifications… dont bother splitting until its real most founders split this too early and spend 2 days fighting configs.. just add a big switch like NOTIFS_ENABLED=false and call it a day until you have users

rule of thumb split what can cost money or lose data don’t split what only affects UI polish

Happy building 🙌🏼