---
title: "A live online auction with outbid emails, built by Claude Code on Elements"
author: "@chris"
author_url: https://elements.dev/u/@chris
published: 2026-09-30T21:44:20.092Z
url: https://elements.dev/demos/a-live-online-auction-with-outbid-emails-built-by-claude-0287ox84
kind: post
format: article
---

# A live online auction with outbid emails, built by Claude Code on Elements

by [@chris](https://elements.dev/u/@chris) · 2026-09-30

## Description

Lots with photos and countdowns, bids at a set increment, late bids that extend the close, outbid emails, and pay-by-card links.

Gavelrush needed bids that land for everyone at once, a close time that moves when a late bid comes in, outbid and winner emails, photo uploads and card payments. Each of those is a part of Elements, so the agent spent its 22 minutes on the auction itself.

- **Live lots and bids.** Lots, bids and watchlists are LiveTables. A bid lands on every open lot card, countdown and the admin's total raised the moment it is placed, and each lot page hears only its own bid history.
- **Bidding as a function call.** The lot page places a bid through an `@rpc` server function that locks the lot, checks the increment, extends the close by two minutes when a bid comes in late, and queues the outbid email, all in one transaction.
- **Jobs and email.** A one-line cron schedule closes lots every minute, records each winner and queues the winner's email with a link to pay. The outbid email checks at send time that the bidder is still behind.
- **Card payments.** The winner pays through Stripe for the amount on the lot, and the payment is recorded once whether the return page or Stripe's webhook arrives first. Without a Stripe key, a test checkout inside the app records payments through the same function, and in production the app registers its own webhook on the first checkout.
- **Photos in the database.** The admin uploads lot photos straight through a server call, and the app serves each one at an address browsers keep for a year.
- **Data from SQL files.** Migrations define the auction and seed one admin, four bidders and twelve lots with photos, bids and watchlists, one closing in minutes.