A framework to prototype webapps fast so you can touch grass

Documentation | How to Contribute

Aeria is a framework designed to streamline CRUD-based applications with a type-safe, developer-friendly experience. It includes a lightweight MongoDB abstraction layer and a DSL for model definition supporting nested objects, arrays, references, upload fields, and more, making it ideal for applications with complex data structures and relational logic. Additionally, a HTTP routing API with very simple bindings is provided to build business logic.

The project was created to offer a more cohesive and straightforward way to create data-centric applications using MongoDB compared to alternatives like Express/Mongoose.

Quickstart

$ npm create -y aeria-app@latest hello-world

Features

• Authentication
• File management
• Security (rate limiting, entity ownership, RBAC, etc)
• tRPC-like SDK with 1:1 typing
• Ready-to-use dashboard extensible with Vue

Demo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Aeria a programming language?

A common concern people have when being introduced to something like Aeria is: "Am I going to learn a whole new language just to use that thing?". Aeria has a very flat learning curve because it is not a fully-fledged programming language. It has only two main concepts: collections and contracts. Learning the whole thing can be done in half an hour or even less.

You probably won't have a hard time guessing what the code below does:

collection Person {
  icon "person"
  properties {
    name str
    job enum @values([
      "programmer",
      "doctor",
      "policeman",
    ])
    age int @minimum(1) @maximum(120)
    profile_picture File @accept(["image/*"])
  }
  functions {
    get
    getAll
    insert
    remove
    upload
  }
}

Or that one:

contract GetPersonBySlug {
  payload {
    properties {
      slug str
    }
  }
  response
    | Error {
      properties {
        httpStatus int
        code str
      }
    }
    | Result Person
}

Why should I consider using it?

Aeria brings a lot of benefits when you need to prototype an MVP fast and then scale to a more robust project. The most obvious is that the amount of code -- and thus time -- needed to implement a feature is dramatically reduced compared to conventional approaches, thanks to the DSL and builtins that the framework offers.

Along with that, it ships a ready-to-use extensible dashboard and a 1:1 typed SDK. It is also a lot faster than Mongoose and Prisma when dealing with references.

To sum it up: if your database pick is MongoDB and you are going for building a project fast and you care about type-safety, Aeria is the right pick for you.

Community

Reach out to learn more about Aeria and know about upcoming features.