Appear Schema

Appear Schema is a CLI toolkit to generate application code.

• Swiftly write application code by leaving the repeatable tasks for a generator.
• Improve maintainability by making the application files consistent.
• Reduce copy-paste errors or dangling unused code by design.

Users Guide

Installation steps

Appear Schema can be installed with Python package manager.

pip install appear-schema

OR

Clone and install the latest version of Appear Schema directly

pip install git+https://github.com/zacpez/appear-schema@main

Getting started

Initialize an Appear Schema configuration in a project folder. Initialization without setting flags will create a skeleton configuration folder, and the develop must fill out their own schema and templates.

pwd
  /my/projects/new_project
appear-schema init # Creates a `.appear-schema` directory in your project.
ls
  .appear-schema/
  README.md

Create a configuration with preferred starting templates. Using flags such as the example below, will create schemas and templates that match the stack described. The application will be bare bones, but the app can stand up easily.

$ appear-schema init --frontend=vue --backend=flask --database=postgres --container=nginx-proxy
$ tree .appear-schema
.
├── templates
│   ├── frontend
│   │   ├── component.vue.jinja
│   │   ├── page.vue.jinja
│   │   ├── app.vue.jinja
│   │   └── app.docker.jinja
│   ├── proxy
│   │   └── nginx.docker.jinja
│   ├── backend
│   │   ├── model.sqlalchemy.jinja
│   │   ├── app.flask.jinja
│   │   ├── test.pytest.jinja
│   │   └── app.docker.jinja
│   └── database
│       ├── fixture.postgres.jinja
│       └── app.docker.jinja
└── schema
    ├── user
    │   ├── user.assignment.json
    │   ├── user.history.json
    │   └── user.roles.json
    ├── page
    │   ├── page.content.json
    │   └── page.plugin.json
    └── form
        ├── form.fields.json
        └── form.submission.json

After setting up the application configuration run a build the project folder.

$ appear-schema build # Creates project files in your project.
$ ls
  .appear-schema/
  frontend/
  backend/
  database/
  docker-compose.yml
  README.md

Check some basic statistics of the application configuration. This can be handy to validate the build.

$ appear-schema build --summary # returns meta data on `.appear-schema` configs
Components: frontend, backend, database
Number of user Schemas: 12
Number of Template files: 144
...

Developer Guide

The development process consists of two parts, proposals in Request For Comments fashion, and proof of concept as an implementation and a usual PR process. Small interactive PRs are great, large ones will take time to review. Keep that in mind.

RFC Process

In this project we will follow an RFC process that vuejs follows. It is a github-based workflow that is manageable for a project like this. Below is a reiteration of the above link, please read both.

Scope

The intention is that RFCs capture the larger ideas that require significant forethought, design, and planning. Smaller issues can be submitted through a usual Pull Request(PR) such as bugs, hardening, and feature extensions.

Definition & Lifecycle

To submit an RFC, create a PR with RFC label, and a title starting with "RFC:", for example RFC: First application code languages and frameworks. The content of the RFC will reside in the /rfcs/ directory RFCs will formatted as a Markdown file with incrementing file number and a unique feature name.

Please follow the template for a RFC, this will ensure fewer edits before implementation.

/rfcs/
  + 0000-project-name.md

An RFC has an associated status

1. Pending: Submitted and under public review as an open PR
2. Active: RFC clarifications complete, and implementations underway
3. Landed: Implementation complete and released
4. Rejected: Rejected during public review, a closed PR

Contribution

In addition to RFC contribution we also follow an implementation contribution guide. Thanks goes to PurpleBooth for supplying a template contribution file.

Developer quick start guide

# install python >=3.10, pip >22
pip install -r requirements.txt

# View the file if you want to break development steps apart
./dev-install.sh

Testing the installation, you should see the appear-schema CLI tool immediately, on Successful build of course. Its best to create a new directory and test the subcommands there. Building on top of the project