Agents Guide

This file follows the agents.md specification for AI agent context. If you're a human reading this, it provides a comprehensive overview of the TinyBase project for AI assistants working with the codebase.

Overview

TinyBase is a reactive data store and sync engine for local-first applications. It is a TypeScript library that provides a reactive, in-memory data store with a powerful synchronization engine. It's designed for building local-first applications that work offline and sync across devices. The library is exceptionally small (5.3kB-11.7kB), has zero runtime dependencies, and maintains 100% test coverage.

• Website: https://tinybase.org
• Repository: https://github.com/tinyplex/tinybase
• Documentation: https://tinybase.org/api/
• License: MIT
• Author: James Pearce (@jamesgpearce)

Core Concepts

Data Store

TinyBase provides two types of data structures:

• Tables: Tabular data organized as Table → Row → Cell (similar to relational databases)
• Values: Simple key-value pairs for application state

Both can coexist in the same Store and support optional schemas with type enforcement.

Reactivity

The library implements a fine-grained reactive system where you can listen to changes at any level:

• Entire store changes
• Table/value additions or removals
• Row changes within a table
• Individual cell or value changes

Listeners fire automatically when data changes, enabling efficient UI updates that only re-render affected components.

Synchronization

TinyBase includes native CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type) support via the MergeableStore, allowing deterministic synchronization across multiple clients and servers using Hybrid Logical Clocks for causality tracking.

Key Features

Data Management

• Schemas: Optional TypeScript-inferred schemas for type safety
• Indexes: Fast lookups by cell values with slice-based grouping
• Queries: SQL-like query engine (select, join, filter, group) without actual SQL
• Relationships: Define foreign-key relationships between tables
• Metrics: Built-in aggregations (sum, avg, min, max)
• Checkpoints: Undo/redo functionality with branching support

Persistence

Multiple storage backends supported via Persisters:

• Browser: LocalStorage, SessionStorage, IndexedDB, OPFS
• Databases: SQLite (Bun, WASM, sqlite3), PostgreSQL, PGlite, Turso (libSQL)
• Third-party: ElectricSQL, PowerSync, CR-SQLite
• Cloud: PartyKit, Cloudflare Durable Objects
• Files: Node.js file system
• CRDT: Yjs, Automerge integration
• React Native: MMKV, SQLite

Synchronization

Synchronizers enable real-time data sync:

• WebSocket (client and server)
• BroadcastChannel (same-origin tabs)
• Local (in-memory for testing)
• Custom transports (extensible)

React Integration

Optional ui-react module provides:

• Hooks: useCell, useRow, useTable, useTables, useValue, etc.
• Components: Pre-built reactive views for data rendering
• Context: Multi-store support with ID-based contexts
• DOM Components: ui-react-dom with interactive tables
• Inspector: Developer tools overlay for debugging

Architecture

Modular Design

TinyBase uses a modular architecture where each feature is an independent module that can be imported separately:

tinybase              # Core store module
tinybase/indexes      # Indexing
tinybase/queries      # Query engine
tinybase/relationships # Relationships
tinybase/metrics      # Aggregations
tinybase/checkpoints  # Undo/redo
tinybase/mergeable-store # CRDT support
tinybase/persisters/persister-* # Storage backends
tinybase/synchronizers/synchronizer-* # Sync transports
tinybase/ui-react     # React hooks
tinybase/ui-react-dom # React DOM components
tinybase/ui-react-inspector # DevTools

Type System

Strong TypeScript support with:

• Generic types that infer from schemas
• Conditional types for schema-aware APIs
• Mapped types for compile-time validation
• Type-safe hooks and components

Build System

• Gulp: Build orchestration
• TypeScript: Source language with strict mode
• Rollup: Bundling (implied)
• ESM: Primary module format
• Tree-shaking: Aggressive optimization for minimal bundles

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 23.10.0
• npm >= 10.9.2

Setup

git clone https://github.com/tinyplex/tinybase.git
cd tinybase
npm install

Common Commands

npm run compileAndTestUnit  # Compile and run unit tests
npm run testUnitFast        # Quick test iteration
npm run lint                # Run ESLint
npm run spell               # Spell check
npm run preCommit           # Full pre-commit check
npm run compileDocs         # Generate API documentation
npm run serveDocs           # Preview documentation locally

Testing

• Framework: Vitest
• Coverage: 100% required (enforced)
• Types: Unit, performance, end-to-end, production
• Environment: happy-dom (unit), puppeteer (e2e)

Code Style

• ESLint: Enforced with strict rules
• Prettier: Automatic formatting
• Max line length: 80 characters
• Quotes: Single quotes (template literals allowed)
• Semicolons: Required
• Object spacing: No spaces in braces {key: value}

Project Structure

tinybase/
├── src/                    # Source code
│   ├── @types/            # TypeScript declarations
│   ├── store/             # Core store implementation
│   ├── indexes/           # Indexing module
│   ├── queries/           # Query engine
│   ├── relationships/     # Relationships module
│   ├── metrics/           # Metrics module
│   ├── checkpoints/       # Checkpoints module
│   ├── mergeable-store/   # CRDT implementation
│   ├── persisters/        # Storage backends
│   ├── synchronizers/     # Sync transports
│   ├── ui-react/          # React hooks
│   ├── ui-react-dom/      # React DOM components
│   ├── ui-react-inspector/ # DevTools
│   └── common/            # Shared utilities
├── test/                  # Tests
│   ├── unit/             # Unit tests
│   ├── perf/             # Performance tests
│   ├── e2e/              # End-to-end tests
│   └── prod/             # Production build tests
├── docs/                  # Generated documentation
├── dist/                  # Build output
├── site/                  # Documentation site source
├── gulpfile.mjs          # Build configuration
├── vitest.config.ts      # Test configuration
├── eslint.config.js      # Linting rules
└── tsconfig.json         # TypeScript config

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This is a spare-time project, so response times may vary.

Requirements:

1. Follow the Prettier and ESLint configurations
2. Maintain 100% test coverage
3. Update documentation for API changes
4. Add examples for new features

Process:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes with tests
4. Run npm run preCommit to verify
5. Submit a pull request

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Community

• Discord: https://discord.com/invite/mGz3mevwP8
• Discussions: https://github.com/tinyplex/tinybase/discussions
• Issues: https://github.com/tinyplex/tinybase/issues
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tinybase.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/tinybasejs

Use Cases

TinyBase is ideal for:

• Local-first applications: Apps that work offline and sync later
• Real-time collaboration: Multi-user applications with CRDT sync
• Reactive UIs: Applications requiring fine-grained reactivity
• Mobile apps: React Native apps with local storage
• Edge computing: Cloudflare Workers, Durable Objects
• Progressive Web Apps: Offline-capable web applications
• Games: Real-time state management with undo/redo
• Data dashboards: Reactive data visualization

Performance

• Tiny bundle sizes (5.3kB - 11.7kB depending on features)
• Zero runtime dependencies
• Efficient change detection and listener notification
• Memory pooling for ID generation
• Tree-shakeable modular design
• Optimized for bundle size and runtime performance

Related Projects

• Synclets: Generic synchronization library (https://synclets.org)
• TinyWidgets: Widget toolkit built on TinyBase (https://tinywidgets.org)
• TinyTick: Reactive ticker tape component (https://tinytick.org)

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Note for AI Agents: TinyBase uses unique patterns including utility function wrappers (e.g., arrayForEach, mapGet, objHas) instead of native methods for consistency and tree-shaking. Always use factory functions (createStore, createIndexes, etc.) with builder pattern chaining. Maintain 100% test coverage and follow the strict 80-character line length. See .github/copilot-instructions.md for detailed coding patterns.

Documentation System

TinyBase has a sophisticated documentation system that generates the website from source code and markdown files.

Documentation Structure

1. Type Definitions (src/@types/*/): TypeScript .d.ts files contain the API type definitions. Never add comments directly to .d.ts files.

2. Documentation Files (src/@types/*/docs.js): Companion docs.js files sit alongside .d.ts files. Use /// convention to document types and functions. These are stitched together at build time to generate documentation.

3. Guide Files (site/guides/*/*.md): Markdown files in the site/guides/ directory, organized by topic (basics, schemas, persistence, etc.). These are source files for guides on the website.

4. Generated Files: /releases.md and /readme.md in the root are GENERATED from /site/guides/17_releases.md and /site/home/index.md. Never edit the generated files directly.

Documentation Testing

TinyBase has automated tests that validate all inline code examples in documentation:

npx vitest run ./test/unit/documentation.test.ts --retry=0

How it works:

• Extracts code blocks from markdown files and docs.js files
• For guide .md files: concatenates all code blocks from the file together and runs them as a single test — examples in the same file share scope
• For docs.js files: each @example block is extracted independently (via regex) and run as its own isolated test — examples do NOT share scope

Critical constraints for guide .md files:

• Don't redeclare variables across examples in the same file
• First example can declare const store = [createStore](/api/the-essentials/creating-stores/createstore/)(), subsequent examples reuse it
• Include necessary imports in examples that use them
• Avoid async operations in examples unless necessary
• Keep examples simple and focused

Critical constraints for docs.js files:

• Each @example block runs in complete isolation
• You CAN (and should) reuse simple variable names like store, middleware across @example blocks — no suffixing needed
• Each @example must include its own imports and setup
• Keep examples self-contained
• Try to make the tests about simple data that relates to a real life pet store (eg 'pets', 'species', 'employees' etc)

Common pitfalls:

• ❌ Declaring const store multiple times in the same guide file
• ❌ Using undefined functions (forgot import statement)
• ❌ Adding unnecessary suffixes (store2, store3) in docs.js examples
• ✅ First guide example: const store = [createStore](/api/the-essentials/creating-stores/createstore/)()
• ✅ Later guide examples: store.setCell(...) (reuses existing store)
• ✅ Each docs.js @example: const store = [createStore](/api/the-essentials/creating-stores/createstore/)() (independent)

Adding New Documentation

1. API Documentation: Edit docs.js file next to the type definition
2. Guide Content: Edit markdown files in /site/guides/
3. Release Notes: Edit /site/guides/17_releases.md (not /releases.md)
4. Always run documentation tests after changes to verify examples work

Creating New Schematizers

Schematizers convert external schema validation libraries (like Zod) to TinyBase schemas. Follow this pattern:

Module Structure

src/@types/schematizers/schematizer-{library}/
  index.d.ts           # Type definitions
  docs.js              # Documentation
  with-schemas/
    index.d.ts         # Re-exports for schema-aware variants
src/schematizers/schematizer-{library}/
  index.ts             # Implementation

Factory Pattern

export const createZodSchematizer: typeof createZodSchematizerDecl = () => {
  const toTablesSchema = (schemas: {[tableId: string]: any}): TablesSchema => {
    // Best-effort conversion logic
  };

  const toValuesSchema = (schemas: {[valueId: string]: any}): ValuesSchema => {
    // Best-effort conversion logic
  };

  return objFreeze({
    toTablesSchema,
    toValuesSchema,
  });
};

Conversion Strategy

• Extract basic types only: string, number, boolean
• Handle defaults via schema introspection
• Support nullable and optional modifiers
• Ignore complex types (arrays, objects, etc.) - they won't appear in output
• Use recursive unwrapping for wrapper types (e.g., ZodOptional, ZodNullable, ZodDefault)

Implementation Idioms

• Use objForEach for iteration, not for...in loops
• Use ifNotUndefined for conditional logic
• Use objIsEmpty to filter out empty table schemas
• Extract string constants to module-level (e.g., TYPE, DEFAULT, ALLOW_NULL)
• Freeze the returned schematizer object with objFreeze

Example Conversion Logic

const unwrap = (
  schema: any,
  defaultValue?: any,
  allowNull?: boolean,
): [any, any, boolean] => {
  const typeName = schema._def?.typeName;
  return typeName === ZOD_OPTIONAL
    ? unwrap(schema._def.innerType, defaultValue, allowNull)
    : typeName === ZOD_NULLABLE
      ? unwrap(schema._def.innerType, defaultValue, true)
      : typeName === ZOD_DEFAULT
        ? unwrap(schema._def.innerType, schema._def.defaultValue(), allowNull)
        : [schema, defaultValue, allowNull ?? false];
};

Build Configuration

• Add module to ALL_MODULES array in gulpfile.mjs
• Add peer dependency to package.json (marked as optional)
• Add as dev dependency for testing

Testing

• Create comprehensive test suite in test/unit/schematizers/schematizer-{library}.test.ts
• Test basic type conversion, defaults, nullable, optional
• Test unsupported types are filtered out
• Test integration with actual TinyBase stores
• Inline schemas directly in test calls (no intermediate variables unless needed multiple times)

Documentation Testing

Add library import to test/unit/documentation.test.ts:

import * as z from 'zod';
import * as TinyBaseSchematizersZod from 'tinybase/schematizers/schematizer-zod';

(globalThis as any).modules = {
  ...
  'tinybase/schematizers/schematizer-zod': TinyBaseSchematizersZod,
  zod: z,
};

Guide Writing Best Practices

Examples Run Sequentially

All code examples in a guide file are concatenated and executed as a test:

• Use unique variable names (store, store2, store3) to avoid redeclaration
• First example includes all imports, later examples reuse them
• Clean up between examples if needed (store.[delTables](/api/store/interfaces/store/store/methods/deleter/deltables/)())

Inline Simple Values

• Prefer inline schemas/data in method calls over intermediate variables
• Only extract to variables when used multiple times
• Keeps examples concise and focused

Guide Chains

• Each guide's summary should link to the next guide in sequence
• Pattern: "For that we proceed to the [Next Topic] guide."
• Creates a natural learning path

Release Notes Updates

When adding a new feature:

1. Update /site/guides/17_releases.md (NOT /releases.md):

   • Add new version section at the top
   • Include working code example that will be tested
   • Link to relevant guide if applicable
   • Use past releases as template for structure

2. Update /site/home/index.md:

   • Update the "NEW!" link to point to new version: <a href='/guides/releases/#v7-1'>
   • Update the tagline: <span id="one-with">"The one with Schematizers!"</span>

3. Generated files update automatically during build process

Demo Development Workflow

Demos are located in /site/demos/ as markdown files containing embedded code blocks that are assembled into working applications.

Demo Structure

• Demo files: /site/demos/*.md or /site/demos/*/
• E2E tests: /test/e2e/demos/*.test.ts
• Code blocks in markdown are extracted and combined into complete applications
• All code fragments in a demo share scope (variables declared in one block are available in subsequent blocks)

Iteration Workflow

When modifying demos:

# One-time setup (only if TinyBase source code has changed)
npm run compileForProd

# Fast iteration loop
npm run compileDocsPagesOnly  # Rebuild just the demo pages
npm run testE2e               # Run E2E tests to verify demos

Key points:

• compileForProd builds the TinyBase libraries themselves
• compileDocsPagesOnly is much faster - only rebuilds demo pages from markdown
• You only need compileForProd once, unless you've changed TinyBase source
• E2E tests use Playwright to verify demos work in a real browser
• Individual E2E tests can be run for faster verification during iteration

Maintaining This Guide

At the end of each major project or task, add any new general learnings to this file. This ensures future agents benefit from discoveries about the codebase, build system, testing patterns, or documentation conventions. Only add broadly applicable insights — not project-specific implementation details.