That code is your application logic. Next is a lightweight framework. It doesn't implement authentication for you. It's up to you to implement it, but the scaf

That code is your application logic. Next is a lightweight framework. It doesn't implement authentication for you. It's up to you to implement it, but the scaffolding is there for you to easily do it. You're arguing against your initial comment: > Feels like all tooling starts out with "We're simple, no config or code needed!" and eventually ends up so extensible that it's hard to figure out how to even use it. The point of Next.js is that the framework functionality is minimal. You learn the basic concepts and then build the rest out yourself. If they built all of these middlewares into the framework, then we would be in that state you're complaining about since now you have to learn how to use their specific implementation of that middleware because god knows their implementation won't work for your specific needs. Next.js takes care of everything but the application code itself. It's a true framework.