ent-starter

Prerequisites:

• Ensure you're logged in to Github and then click "Use this template" to create your own instance of the repository. And then clone your copy of the repository to your local machine to make changes.
• Install Docker
• Install Node 14 or more recent version.

upgrading base image

There are periodic updates to the base image as more functionality is added to the framework.

Anytime the base image changes (compare the top line in develop.Dockerfile in the repository to your copy ), you should rebuild the image by running npm run rebuild-image so as to not be stuck with an old image and not see the changes from the new version.

A list of available images can be seen by running the following command: docker image ls. If you see an image with repository {container-name}_app e.g. ent-starter_app that's from a couple weeks or months ago after upgrading the base image, that's the issue you're running into.

database options

There are 3 different supported ways to store data:

• local postgres database
• postgres docker image
• sqlite

local postgres database

• Run createdb ent-starter (replace with name of your app) to create your database
• update db credentials in file docker-compose.dev.yml by changing DB_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable
• Run npm install to install dependencies
• Run npm run codegen after making any changes to the schema
• Make sure to run npm run compile after making any changes to the code and before running npm start

Example schema change:

// src/schema/user_schema.ts
// this adds a User object with a firstName and lastName
import { EntSchema, StringType } from "@snowtop/ent";

const UserSchema = new EntSchema({
  fields: {
    firstName: StringType(),
    lastName: StringType(),
  },
});
export default UserSchema;

For a full intro, check out the docs.

postgres docker image

Instead of installing Postgres and having to deal with a local install, you can use the postgres image. Follow these steps to get started:

• uncomment out the section in docker-compose-dev.yml referring to the db service. Note that indentation in yml files matters.
• change the DB_CONNECTION_STRING line in the environment section of the app service to DB_CONNECTION_STRING=postgres://postgres:postgres@db/ent-starter (or name of your app)
• if you used a different database, update POSTGRES_DB environment variable to database
• if you changed your project name, update container_name to name_of_project
• update .gitignore to add postgres_data so as to not check in the postgres files.
• Add psql as a script to the scripts section of package.json with value docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml run --rm db psql ent-starter -h db -U postgres to make it easy to query the database.
• Add background as a script to the scripts section of package.json with value docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d to run in detached mode since some of the commands require the database to be available and listening to connections before they can succeed.
• Run npm run background to start the database in the background.
• Run npm install to install dependencies
• Run npm run psql to connect to database. Seems to be required to have the connection to database consistently work.
• Run npm run codegen after making any changes to the schema
• Make sure to run npm run compile after making any changes to the code and before running npm start

Example schema change:

// src/schema/user_schema.ts
// this adds a User object with a firstName and lastName
import { EntSchema, StringType } from "@snowtop/ent";

const UserSchema = new EntSchema({
  fields: {
    firstName: StringType(),
    lastName: StringType(),
  },
});
export default UserSchema;

When done, run docker container ls | grep ent-starter | cut -d " " -f 1 | xargs docker stop to stop all containers.

sqlite support

• Need to run npm install better-sqlite3 to install sqlite dependency.
• Add sqlite-init to the scripts section of package.json with value rm -rf node_modules && docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml run --rm app npm install
• Run npm run sqlite-init to initialize things/install dependencies. Anytime a new dependency is added, have to run npm run sqlite-init to install in the container.
• change the DB_CONNECTION_STRING line in the environment section of the app service to DB_CONNECTION_STRING=sqlite:///ent-starter.db
• Run npm run codegen after making any changes to the schema
• Make sure to run npm run compile after making any changes to the code and before running npm start

Example schema change:

// src/schema/user_schema.ts
// this adds a User object with a firstName and lastName
import { EntSchema, StringType } from "@snowtop/ent";

const UserSchema = new EntSchema({
  fields: {
    firstName: StringType(),
    lastName: StringType(),
  },
});
export default UserSchema;