Database

In order to use bknd, you need to prepare access information to your database and potentially install additional dependencies. Connections to the database are managed using Kysely. Therefore, all its dialects are theoretically supported.

Currently supported and tested databases are:

SQLite (embedded): Node.js SQLite, Bun SQLite, LibSQL, SQLocal
SQLite (remote): Turso, Cloudflare D1
Postgres: Vanilla Postgres, Supabase, Neon, Xata

By default, bknd will try to use a SQLite database in-memory. Depending on your runtime, a different SQLite implementation will be used.

Defining the connection

There are mainly 3 ways to define the connection to your database, when

creating an app using App.create() or createApp()
creating an app using a Framework or Runtime adapter
starting a quick instance using the CLI

When creating an app using App.create() or createApp(), you can pass a connection object in the configuration object.

app.ts

import { createApp } from "bknd";
import { sqlite } from "bknd/adapter/sqlite";

// a connection is required when creating an app like this
const app = createApp({
  connection: sqlite({ url: ":memory:" }),
});

When using an adapter, or using the CLI, bknd will automatically try to use a SQLite implementation depending on the runtime:

app.js

import { serve } from "bknd/adapter/node";

serve({
  // connection is optional, but recommended
  connection: { url: "file:data.db" },
});

You can also pass a connection instance to the connection property to explictly use a specific connection.

app.js

import { serve } from "bknd/adapter/node";
import { sqlite } from "bknd/adapter/sqlite";

serve({
  connection: sqlite({ url: "file:data.db" }),
});

If you're using bknd.config.*, you can specify the connection on the exported object.

bknd.config.ts

import type { BkndConfig } from "bknd";

export default {
  connection: { url: "file:data.db" },
} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

Throughout the documentation, it is assumed you use bknd.config.ts to define your connection.

SQLite

Using config object

When run with Node.js, a version of 22 (LTS) or higher is required. Please verify your version by running node -v, and upgrade if necessary.

The sqlite adapter is automatically resolved based on the runtime.

Runtime	Adapter	In-Memory	File	Remote
Node.js	`node:sqlite`	✅	✅	❌
Bun	`bun:sqlite`	✅	✅	❌
Cloudflare Worker/Browser/Edge	`libsql`	🟠	🟠	✅

The bundled version of the libsql connection only works with remote databases. However, you can pass in a Client from @libsql/client, see LibSQL for more details.

bknd.config.ts

import type { BkndConfig } from "bknd";

// no connection is required, bknd will use a SQLite database in-memory
// this does not work on edge environments!
export default {} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

// or explicitly in-memory
export default {
  connection: { url: ":memory:" },
} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

// or explicitly as a file
export default {
  connection: { url: "file:<path/to/your/database.db>" },
} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

LibSQL

Turso offers a SQLite-fork called LibSQL that runs a server around your SQLite database. The edge-version of the adapter is included in the bundle (remote only):

bknd.config.ts

import { libsql, type BkndConfig } from "bknd";

export default {
  connection: libsql({
    url: "libsql://<database>.turso.io",
    authToken: "<auth-token>",
  }),
} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

If you wish to use LibSQL as file, in-memory or make use of Embedded Replicas, you have to pass in the Client from @libsql/client:

bknd.config.ts

import { libsql, type BkndConfig } from "bknd";
import { createClient } from "@libsql/client";

const client = createClient({
  url: "libsql://<database>.turso.io",
  authToken: "<auth-token>",
});

export default {
  connection: libsql(client),
} as const satisfies BkndConfig;

Cloudflare D1

Using the Cloudflare Adapter, you can choose to use a D1 database binding. To do so, you only need to add a D1 database to your wrangler.toml and it'll pick up automatically.

To manually specify which D1 database to take, you can specify it explicitly:

import { serve, d1 } from "bknd/adapter/cloudflare";

export default serve<Env>({
  app: ({ env }) => d1({ binding: env.D1_BINDING }),
});

SQLocal

To use bknd with sqlocal for a offline expierence, you need to install the @bknd/sqlocal package. You can do so by running the following command:

npm install @bknd/sqlocal

This package uses sqlocal under the hood. Consult the sqlocal documentation for connection options:

import { createApp } from "bknd";
import { SQLocalConnection } from "@bknd/sqlocal";

const app = createApp({
  connection: new SQLocalConnection({
    databasePath: ":localStorage:",
    verbose: true,
  }),
});

PostgreSQL

To use bknd with Postgres, you need to install the @bknd/postgres package. You can do so by running the following command:

npm install @bknd/postgres

You can connect to your Postgres database using pg or postgres dialects. Additionally, you may also define your custom connection.

Using `pg`

To establish a connection to your database, you can use any connection options available on the pg package.

import { serve } from "bknd/adapter/node";
import { pg } from "@bknd/postgres";

/** @type {import("bknd/adapter/node").NodeBkndConfig} */
const config = {
  connection: pg({
    connectionString: "postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/database",
  }),
};

serve(config);

Using `postgres`

To establish a connection to your database, you can use any connection options available on the postgres package.

import { serve } from "bknd/adapter/node";
import { postgresJs } from "@bknd/postgres";

serve({
  connection: postgresJs("postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/database"),
});

Using custom connection

Several Postgres hosting providers offer their own clients to connect to their database, e.g. suitable for serverless environments.

Example using @neondatabase/serverless:

import { createCustomPostgresConnection } from "@bknd/postgres";
import { NeonDialect } from "kysely-neon";

const neon = createCustomPostgresConnection(NeonDialect);

serve({
  connection: neon({
    connectionString: process.env.NEON,
  }),
});

Example using @xata.io/client:

import { createCustomPostgresConnection } from "@bknd/postgres";
import { XataDialect } from "@xata.io/kysely";
import { buildClient } from "@xata.io/client";

const client = buildClient();
const xata = new client({
  databaseURL: process.env.XATA_URL,
  apiKey: process.env.XATA_API_KEY,
  branch: process.env.XATA_BRANCH,
});

const xataConnection = createCustomPostgresConnection(XataDialect, {
  supports: {
    batching: false,
  },
});

serve({
  connection: xataConnection({ xata }),
});

Custom Connection

Creating a custom connection is as easy as extending the Connection class and passing constructing a Kysely instance.

import { createApp, Connection } from "bknd";
import { Kysely } from "kysely";

class CustomConnection extends Connection {
  constructor() {
    const kysely = new Kysely(/* ... */);
    super(kysely);
  }
}

const connection = new CustomConnection();

// e.g. and then, create an instance
const app = createApp({ connection });

Initial Structure

To provide an initial database structure, you can pass initialConfig to the creation of an app. This will only be used if there isn't an existing configuration found in the database given. Here is a quick example:

The initial structure is only respected if the database is empty! If you made updates, ensure to delete the database first, or perform updates through the Admin UI.

import { createApp, em, entity, text, number } from "bknd";

const schema = em(
  {
    posts: entity("posts", {
      // "id" is automatically added
      title: text().required(),
      slug: text().required(),
      content: text(),
      views: number(),
    }),
    comments: entity("comments", {
      content: text(),
    }),

    // relations and indices are defined separately.
    // the first argument are the helper functions, the second the entities.
  },
  ({ relation, index }, { posts, comments }) => {
    relation(comments).manyToOne(posts);
    // relation as well as index can be chained!
    index(posts).on(["title"]).on(["slug"], true);
  },
);

// to get a type from your schema, use:
type Database = (typeof schema)["DB"];
// type Database = {
//    posts: {
//       id: number;
//       title: string;
//       content: string;
//       views: number;
//    },
//    comments: {
//       id: number;
//       content: string;
//    }
// }

// pass the schema to the app
const app = createApp({
  connection: {
    /* ... */
  },
  initialConfig: {
    data: schema.toJSON(),
  },
});

Note that we didn't add relational fields directly to the entity, but instead defined them afterwards. That is because the relations are managed outside the entity scope to have an unified expierence for all kinds of relations (e.g. many-to-many).

Defined relations are currently not part of the produced types for the structure. We're working on that, but in the meantime, you can define them manually.

Type completion

To get type completion, there are two options:

Use the CLI to generate the types
If you have an initial structure created with the prototype functions, you can extend the DB interface with your own schema.

All entity related functions use the types defined in DB from bknd. To get type completion, you can extend that interface with your own schema:

import { em } from "bknd";
import { Api } from "bknd/client";

const schema = em({
  /* ... */
});

type Database = (typeof schema)["DB"];
declare module "bknd" {
  interface DB extends Database {}
}

const api = new Api({
  /* ... */
});
const { data: posts } = await api.data.readMany("posts", {});
// `posts` is now typed as Database["posts"]

The type completion is available for the API as well as all provided React hooks.

Seeding the database

To seed your database with initial data, you can pass a seed function to the configuration. It provides the ModuleBuildContext as the first argument.

Note that the seed function will only be executed on app's first boot. If a configuration already exists in the database, it will not be executed.

import { createApp, type ModuleBuildContext } from "bknd";

const app = createApp({
  connection: {
    /* ... */
  },
  initialConfig: {
    /* ... */
  },
  options: {
    seed: async (ctx: ModuleBuildContext) => {
      await ctx.em.mutator("posts").insertMany([
        { title: "First post", slug: "first-post", content: "..." },
        { title: "Second post", slug: "second-post" },
      ]);
    },
  },
});

Database

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