Quickstart

This guide takes you from an empty directory to a running Crudy app with the dev stack. It assumes you already have the CLI installed and Docker available.

1. Scaffold the app

crudy create my-app
cd my-app

The CLI lays out a thin app shell that consumes @crudy/backend and @crudy/frontend. The result looks like this:

my-app/
  app.config.json
  .env.example
  Makefile
  docker-compose.yml
  docker-compose.dev.yml
  backend/
    server.ts
    package.json
    Dockerfile
    Dockerfile.dev
    tsconfig.json
  frontend/
    package.json
    next.config.ts
    proxy.ts
    postcss.config.js
    tsconfig.json
    Dockerfile
    Dockerfile.dev
    app/
      layout.tsx
      page.tsx
      providers.tsx
      globals.css
      login/page.tsx
      [...slug]/page.tsx
  migrations/
  seeds/

backend/server.ts calls createCrudyServer with an empty modules array. frontend/app/providers.tsx calls CrudyProviders with the same. You will add modules in those two files. The generated Makefile wraps the most common dev-loop commands for your app.

2. Install your license

The framework refuses to start without a valid license. Licenses are issued only by Crudy.

1. Request a license at /pricing and tell us the audience value from your app.config.json.
2. Place the two files we send you at the app root:
   • license.lic
   • license-public.pem

3. Configure secrets

Copy the example env file and set real values:

cp .env.example .env

At minimum, JWT_SECRET must be at least 32 characters with sufficient entropy. The backend boot check rejects known defaults (changeme, password, and so on). Pick a long random string.

4. Start the dev stack

The dev compose file builds with hot reload and bind-mounts your source:

make dev-up

Once the containers are healthy:

• API: http://localhost:3000
• Frontend: http://localhost:3001

You can confirm everything came up with:

make health

5. Set the global admin password

The first start creates an admin user (admin@localhost by default) with a random unusable password. Set a real one so you can log in:

crudy admin reset

The command prints the new password once. Use it to log in at http://localhost:3001/login.

6. Reset the database any time

Crudy is a work-in-progress framework: the recommended workflow in dev is to wipe and reapply rather than layering migrations.

make dev-reset
make dev-up

This drops the volumes, restarts the stack, and lets the backend re-run all core and app migrations from scratch on boot.

Next steps

• Explore Architecture: Overview to understand what each piece does.
• Read Modules: Anatomy before you write your first module.