Quick Start

Welcome back, rockstars! We’ll start the tour with a quick, hands-on demo.

New to alab? Grab the latest binary from GitHub Releases or explore the repo for setup details.

alab init

After running alab init, you’ll have:

project/
├── alab.yaml        # Configuration file
├── schemas/         # Your schema definitions
├── migrations/      # Generated SQL migrations
└── types/           # TypeScript definitions for IDE support

Quick Demo

alab init --demo

PostgreSQL Configuration

database:
  dialect: postgres
  url: postgres://user:password@localhost:5432/mydb

schemas: ./schemas
migrations: ./migrations

SQLite Configuration (for development)

database:
  dialect: sqlite
  url: ./dev.db
  ...

Configuration Options

Setting	Description	Example
database.dialect	Database type	postgres or sqlite
database.url	Connection string	See examples above
schemas	Path to schema definitions	./schemas
migrations	Path to migration output	./migrations

Create Your First Table

Use the alab table command to scaffold a new schema file:

alab table auth user

This command generates a basic template at:

schemas/auth/user.js

Two important concepts are introduced here:

1. auth is the namespace that groups related schemas.
2. user is the table definition within that namespace.

This structure stays consistent across teams and services

auth.user  →  auth_user

By enforcing namespaces at the schema level, teams can collaborate in large projects without naming collisions, while keeping database conventions predictable and explicit.

Generate and Apply Migration

Generate a migration from your schema:

alab new create_users

Preview the SQL before applying:

alab migrate --dry

Apply the migration to your database:

alab migrate

Apply migrations and auto-commit to git:

alab migrate --commit