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Getting started

Clone, install, run — five minutes from zero to your first collection.

Five minutes from clone to first item.

Prerequisites

  • Bun ≥ 1.1 (curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash) — the dev toolchain (workspaces, scripts, bun run dev) runs on Bun.
  • Optional: Postgres 14+ for production. Dev defaults to Bun’s built-in SQLite.

Bun is only required for local development. The same source runs on Bun, Node, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, Netlify, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions — see Deployment for the Node and Deno self-host steps.

Install + run

Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/backlex/backlex && cd backlex
bun install
cp apps/web/.dev.vars.example apps/web/.dev.vars


# Apply migrations to local SQLite
bun run db:migrate:sqlite


# Start Vite + Cloudflare miniflare in one process on :5173
# (admin SPA + Worker bundled — no separate API port, no proxy)
bun run dev

Open http://localhost:5173/sign-up and create the first user — they auto-receive the admin role. Subsequent sign-ups get authenticated.

Your first collection

In the admin UI, go to Collections → New and define:

slug: posts
fields:
  - title (text, required)
  - body (longtext)
  - published (boolean)
  - views (integer)
ownerScoped: true

Click Create. The API runs CREATE TABLE c_posts (...) against the live database — no redeploy.

Your first items

Click on posts in the list, then + New item. Type-aware inputs render based on field type (textarea for longtext, checkbox for boolean, number input for views). Save.

The owner-scoped flag auto-seeds permissions for the authenticated role: each user only reads/writes their own items. Admin sees all.

Query

Terminal window
# REST
curl http://localhost:5173/api/items/posts?limit=10 \
  --cookie "$(cat /tmp/cookie.txt)"


# REST with filter (DSL — same as permissions)
curl "http://localhost:5173/api/items/posts?filter=$(echo '{"published":{"_eq":true},"views":{"_gt":10}}' | jq -sRr @uri)&sort=-views"


# GraphQL
curl -X POST http://localhost:5173/api/graphql \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"{ posts(sort:\"-views\", limit:5) { id title views } }"}'

Generate types for your client

Terminal window
bun run backlex gen-types http://localhost:5173 --out src/types.ts

The CLI fetches /api/collections and emits one TypeScript interface per collection plus a Collections registry. Use with backlex:

import { createClient } from "backlex";
import type { Posts } from "./types";


const wks = createClient({ url: "http://localhost:5173" });
const r = await wks.from<Posts>("posts").list({
  filter: { published: { _eq: true } },
  sort: "-views",
  limit: 10,
});

Deploy

One-click deploy clones the repo into your own Git account and ships it — vercel.ts (Build Output API) and netlify.toml are already in the repo, so no extra config is needed:

Deploy with Vercel   Deploy to Netlify

After the clone you still set the runtime env vars — backlex needs a Postgres URL (DATABASE_DRIVER=neon-http), S3-compatible storage, and AUTH_SECRET. Full per-platform steps + every variable: Deployment — also covers Bun, Node, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions.

Deno Deploy is also supported (managed, experimental). There’s no one-click button — it ships via the deno deploy CLI or a dashboard Git link rather than a clone URL — but the same source runs on it (verified live), with neon-http + Upstash forced automatically.

Already deployed? See Staying up to date to pull in later releases — migrations apply automatically on redeploy.

What next

  • Migrating an external database in — copy your Postgres/MySQL/Mongo/… into backlex, PKs preserved
  • Permissions DSL — granular role + condition rules
  • Auth planes — admin pool vs workspace end-user pool
  • Sandbox functions — JavaScript code that runs in a sandbox
  • AI agents — reason→act agents that call your tools, with per-thread memory
  • MCP server — expose the workspace to Claude Desktop / Cursor / IDE agents
  • Deployment — push to Bun, Workers, Vercel, Netlify, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud, or Azure
  • Testing — three-layer pyramid (bun test / build-targets / runtime-smoke)