buildahouse

buildahouse.mu — a checklist and guide for anyone building a house in Mauritius, so nothing important gets missed.

Markdown Scratchpad here

Running it

pnpm install
pnpm dev        # http://localhost:3000
pnpm generate   # static site into .output/public

If content edits don't show up, the parsed-content cache is stale: rm -rf .nuxt .data .output.

Deploying

Static output, so any host works. On Cloudflare: build command pnpm generate, output directory .output/public.

The build compiles better-sqlite3 from source, which pnpm only does for packages listed in pnpm-workspace.yaml. Cloudflare's build image is a few pnpm versions behind, so that file names the packages twice — see the comments there before tidying it up.

Guides, in build order

Phase	Guide	Covers
1	land	Zoning, notary, title search, survey, excision, soil test
2	finance	Budget, loan pre-approval, comparing lenders, tranches, insurance
2	mra	Government schemes, refunds, and grants
2	finance-tools	Open-source tools for tracking spend against disbursements
3	architect	Choosing an architect, fees, the design process
3	quantity-surveyor	Cost estimation, Bill of Quantities, where budgets break
4	permit	Building and Land Use Permit (BLP)
4	contractor	Selection, quotations, contract, payment milestones, retention
5	construction-phases	Stage-by-stage site checks, from setting out to snagging
5	construction-starter-guide	The whole build on one page, in site vocabulary
5	glossary	Kreol and French building terms
6	ceb	Electricity connection
6	cwa	Water connection
6	wma	Wastewater — sewer or septic tank
6	telecom	Internet and telephone
7	occupation-certificate	Occupation Certificate, municipal records, claiming refunds

Content conventions

Guides live in content/, one file per topic, lowercase filename = URL path. Adding a file is all it takes to add a page — the homepage, the phase grouping, and the prev/next navigation are all derived from frontmatter.

• Frontmatter — every guide carries title, description, phase, order, tags, and lastVerified. The schema in content.config.ts enforces this, so a missing field fails the build.
• description — the one-line summary on the homepage card. Quote it if it contains a colon, or YAML reads it as a nested map.
• order — sorts guides within and across phases; it drives prev/next. Numbered by phase (10s for phase 1, 20s for phase 2, …) to leave room for insertions.
• lastVerified — the date the facts and links in the file were last checked against official sources. Shown on every page so readers know how fresh the information is. Update it whenever you change a figure.
• [VERIFY] — marks a figure, fee, or document list that must be confirmed against an official source before publication. Never replace one with a guess.
• [[wiki-links]] — cross-references between guides, written as the target's filename without the extension. modules/wiki-links.ts resolves them to real titles and paths at parse time, which keeps the markdown readable on GitHub.
• Checklists — every guide ends with a - [ ] checklist. These become the tickable items on the site. Progress is keyed by the item's text, not its position, so reordering a list keeps readers' ticks — but rewording an item resets that one.
• # Title heading — keep it, even though it duplicates the frontmatter title. It's hidden on the site (sr-only) and matters when the file is read as plain markdown.

Accuracy policy

Government schemes, fees, and document requirements in Mauritius change with each annual Budget and with departmental practice. Wrong figures here cost readers real money.

• Cite the official source for every claim.
• Re-verify scheme amounts, ceilings, and end dates before each release, and update lastVerified.
• Prefer omitting a number to publishing a stale one.

Verification status

Sources were checked against official websites on 2026-07-27. mra.md, permit.md, cwa.md, ceb.md, and occupation-certificate.md carry verified figures; the rest are guidance rather than published fact.

Confirmed and corrected in that pass:

• Housing Loan Relief Scheme extended to June 2027, but tapered to Rs 667/month then Rs 333/month — not the Rs 1,000 widely quoted. Applications close 31 Dec 2027.
• VAT refund is closed to new construction — qualifying window ended 30 June 2025. Its 1,800 ft² floor-area limit no longer constrains new designs.
• CWA charges Rs 2,200 installation on top of the Rs 500 processing fee.
• Occupation Certificate is a two-step process: compliance certificate first, then apply for the occupation certificate within 5 days.
• BLP is valid for 2 years; drawings above 150 m² need a registered Professional Architect.

Still unverified — do not treat as fact:

• CIDB — all CIDB domains failed DNS. Whether registration is mandatory for residential work, the grades, and whether a public register exists are all unconfirmed.
• WMA — no reachable website found. The document list in WMA.md is inferred from CWA/CEB practice, not from a WMA source.
• Rs/ft² construction rates — no authoritative published source exists; deliberately omitted.
• Registration duty exemption ceiling; Home Ownership Refund and Home Loan Payment schemes (both likely expired — source URLs now dead).
• CEB connection charges, compliance/occupation certificate fees, municipal rates, telecom install charges, soil test cost.

These need phone calls rather than fetches — the figures either aren't published or the publishing sites are unreachable.

Stack

Nuxt 4 + @nuxt/content v3, statically generated (pnpm generate, prerendered by crawling links from /). Tailwind CSS with @tailwindcss/typography. Checklist progress saved in the browser via localStorage under buildahouse:progress — no accounts, no backend, nothing leaves the device. English at launch, content structured so French and Kreol Morisien can be added later.

content/                 the guides — the actual substance of the site
content.config.ts        collection schema (fails the build on bad frontmatter)
modules/wiki-links.ts    resolves [[slug]] to real titles at parse time
app/pages/index.vue      homepage, guides grouped by phase
app/pages/[...slug].vue  a guide page
app/components/content/ProseLi.vue   makes `- [ ]` items tickable
app/composables/useChecklist.ts      localStorage progress

Two things worth knowing before editing the app:

• ~ resolves to app/, not the project root — hence the relative ./modules/wiki-links in nuxt.config.ts.
• Content v3's body is a "minimal" AST: an element node is an array [tag, props, ...children], not an object with .tag. Anything walking the tree must handle that shape.