Localz — Stripe payments setup

Projects/Localz.md's tactical MVP plan lists Week 4 as "Payments (stub) — Stripe test mode checkout, transaction storage, cash-option flag," and its stack section names Stripe (Checkout + Billing) as the one unanimous choice across all three stack documents.

• stripe_based_payments — a hands-on Stripe integration guide written while standing up payments for the Courses project: the onboarding decision matrix, env var conventions (publishable/secret/webhook-secret key placement), the full local testing loop (stripe listen + test cards), and the reusable Checkout Session → webhook → entitlement-record architecture.

Important caveat, not just a clean match: the guide's own decision matrix says to pick Stripe's "Accept payments" path "unless your app itself routes money to multiple separate third-party sellers (Shopify/Uber/Airbnb/Etsy model — that's Stripe Connect, a much bigger integration)." Localz is that model — it pays out to many independent service providers, not one business selling its own thing — so the Courses setup (Accept payments, one entitlement record per purchase) does not transfer as-is. The reusable parts are real (env var layout, local webhook testing flow, general "verify webhook → write a DB record" shape); the core onboarding decision and the payout-splitting logic are not, and Stripe Connect isn't covered anywhere yet in this vault.

Suggested next step: before Week 4, do a short research pass on Stripe Connect (Standard vs. Express vs. Custom account types, since provider KYC/payout setup is already a named Localz requirement) and write it up alongside this note the same way the Clerk research is split into plan vs. walkthrough — this guide is a good template for that structure, not a drop-in solution.