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Protobase

Getting started

Protobase is a config-driven admin panel framework for existing Postgres databases. Data config lives in data.ts, UI config in ui.ts; a Hono server serves the API and a React app renders the admin.

Setup

Section titled “Setup”

Requires Node >= 22.12 (.nvmrc) and pnpm 10.12.1.

Terminal window
pnpm install

Run the ERP example

Section titled “Run the ERP example”

examples/erp is a sample ERP on a real Postgres database, seeded with three years of history. It needs Docker for the database.

Terminal window
pnpm --filter erp db:up && pnpm --filter erp db:migrate && pnpm --filter erp db:seed --scale small
pnpm --filter erp auth:migrate                 # Better Auth's tables, in the auth schema
pnpm --filter erp protobase users create you@example.com --generate-password
pnpm --filter erp dev                          # http://localhost:5173

BETTER_AUTH_SECRET in .env signs the session cookies; see Login with Better Auth. protobase dev serves the admin app and the API on one port and reloads both on every change (CLI).

Commands

Section titled “Commands”
Command Purpose
pnpm test Vitest, single run
pnpm test:watch Vitest, watch mode
pnpm typecheck tsc --noEmit
pnpm check:boundaries dependency-cruiser folder rules
pnpm check typecheck + test + check:boundaries
pnpm storybook Storybook on port 6006
pnpm build-storybook static Storybook build
pnpm build:serve the serve runtime, dist/protobase-serve.js (see Deploy)
pnpm docs:dev this site on port 4321
pnpm docs:build this site, built into website/dist/; fails on broken links
pnpm docs:check opens every page of the built site in Chromium and fails on console errors and failed requests; BASE=https://docs.protobase.net checks the live site

Source folders match the public imports (protobase/schema, query, ui, server). See Architecture for the layout and import rules.