Models and SQLite

A model is a type declaration and a table definition at the same time. There is no schema file, no migration directory, and no ORM. The runtime issues CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS on startup from the fields you declared.

Declaring a model

model Post {
    id: string
    title: string
    body: string
    views: int
    rating: float
    published: bool
}

The mapping is fixed and worth memorising:

Field type	SQLite type
string	TEXT
int, bool	INTEGER
float	REAL
a field named id	the primary key

An id field is what makes a row addressable, so a model without one has no update or delete path.

Reading

route GET "/posts" {
    val posts = Post.all()
    return ok 200 posts
}

route GET "/posts/:id" {
    val id = req.param("id")
    val found = Post.find(id)
    return ok 200 found
}

find returns whatever the table holds for that id, and nothing is invented when the row is absent. The response body is the row, not a wrapper object.

Writing

route POST "/posts" {
    val payload = req.body()
    val created = Post.create(payload)
    if created {
        return ok 201 payload
    }
    return ok 400 "{\"stored\":false}"
}

create returns false in two cases, and it does not raise in either:

• the id already exists, because it is the primary key
• the payload has no usable fields

delete is the same shape: true only when a row was actually removed, so a delete of a row that was never there is a false and not a crash.

The part that is not finished

Tables are created, never migrated. Adding a field to a model after the table exists does not alter it, which means a new field reads as empty rather than failing loudly. There is no schema versioning and no transaction-boundary contract for application code.

The migrations guide in the repository describes the manual practice that works today: change the model, drop the table, let startup recreate it, and accept the data loss on a development machine. That is honest, and it is not what you would run in production.

What this costs

A connection per process, and the four built-in tables plus one per model are created on every start. Using any auth helper links the database automatically, so a service with bearer routes needs no separate setup step.