Zebric Quickstart (5 minutes)

This quick start gets you up and running with a Zebric web application on your local machine.

Prerequisites

You’ll need Node.js 22 or above. Zebric’s CI and published images use Node.js 24.

Install Zebric

npm install -g @zebric/cli

Create a Blueprint

Create a new file named blueprint.toml:

version = "0.1.0"

[project]
name = "My Blog"
version = "1.0.0"
description = "A simple blog"

[project.runtime]
min_version = "0.1.0"

# Define a Post entity with three fields
[entity.Post]
fields = [
  { name = "id", type = "ULID", primary_key = true },
  { name = "title", type = "Text", required = true },
  { name = "body", type = "LongText", required = true },
  { name = "published", type = "Boolean", default = false },
  { name = "createdAt", type = "DateTime", default = "now" }
]

# Home page — list all posts
[page."/"]
title = "All Posts"
auth = "none"
layout = "list"

[page."/".query.posts]
entity = "Post"
orderBy = { createdAt = "desc" }

# Create-post form
[page."/posts/new"]
title = "New Post"
auth = "none"
layout = "form"

[page."/posts/new".form]
entity = "Post"
method = "create"

[[page."/posts/new".form.fields]]
name = "title"
type = "text"
label = "Title"
required = true

[[page."/posts/new".form.fields]]
name = "body"
type = "textarea"
label = "Body"
rows = 10
required = true

[page."/posts/new".form.onSuccess]
redirect = "/"
message = "Post created!"

# Post detail page
[page."/posts/:id"]
title = "Post Detail"
auth = "none"
layout = "detail"

[page."/posts/:id".query.post]
entity = "Post"
where = { id = "$params.id" }

Start the Dev Server

zebric dev --blueprint blueprint.toml --seed

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. You’ll see:

• A list page at / showing all posts
• A form at /posts/new to create a post
• A detail page at /posts/:id for each post

What Just Happened?

Zebric read your TOML blueprint and:

1. Created a SQLite database with a Post table matching your entity definition
2. Generated routes for each page (/, /posts/new, /posts/:id)
3. Rendered server-side HTML using the layout type you specified (list, form, detail)
4. Wired up CRUD operations so the form creates records and the list queries them

No code was generated. The runtime interprets the blueprint directly.

Next Steps

• Add authentication with [auth] and providers = ["email"]
• Define access control on entities with [entity.Post.access]
• Add workflows to automate status transitions
• Explore the example blueprints for more patterns