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Getting started

Install​

Want everything at once? npm install monlite is the batteries-included bundle — the database plus cache, queue, cron, full-text + vector search, sync, and realtime (import { createDb, kv, vector } from "monlite"). See the all-in-one package.

For the minimal, zero-dependency path, install just the core:

# Zero-dependency: uses Node's built-in node:sqlite (Node >= 22.5)
npm install @monlite/core

# For Node 18/20, or to avoid the experimental flag:
npm install @monlite/core better-sqlite3

createDb auto-selects better-sqlite3 when installed; otherwise falls back to node:sqlite. Both backends are fully tested.

Open a database​

import { createDb } from "@monlite/core";

const db = createDb("app.db");    // file on disk
const mem = createDb(":memory:"); // ephemeral, gone when the process exits

…or open Postgres — same API​

Need a networked, multi-writer backend? Install @monlite/postgres and change the import. Everything below — collections, queries, aggregation, watch(), search — works identically; documents are stored as JSONB.

import { createDb } from "@monlite/postgres";
const db = createDb("postgres://user@host/db");

Collections and documents​

A collection is created on first use. Type it for end-to-end inference, or leave it untyped for schema-free usage.

interface User {
  name: string;
  age: number;
  roles?: string[];
}

const users = db.collection<User>("users");

// Create
await users.create({ data: { name: "Ali", age: 30, roles: ["admin"] } });
await users.createMany({ data: [{ name: "Sara", age: 25 }, { name: "Omar", age: 40 }] });

// Read
const ali = await users.findFirst({ where: { name: "Ali" } });
const admins = await users.findMany({ where: { roles: { has: "admin" } } });
const total = await users.count({ where: { age: { gte: 18 } } });

// Update
await users.update({ where: { _id: ali!._id }, data: { $inc: { age: 1 } } });

// Delete
await users.delete({ where: { _id: ali!._id } });

monlite adds _id, created_at, and updated_at to every document automatically.

For typed collections, where and orderBy reject unknown fields at compile time, and select narrows the result type. Untyped collections (db.collection("name")) are fully schema-free.

Query operators​

// Comparison
{ age: { gte: 18, lt: 65 } }
{ role: { in: ["admin", "editor"] } }

// String
{ name: { contains: "ali", mode: "insensitive" } }
{ email: { regex: "@acme\\.com$" } }

// Arrays
{ roles: { has: "admin" } }
{ items: { elemMatch: { sku: "A", qty: { gte: 2 } } } }

// Logical
{ OR: [{ role: "admin" }, { age: { gte: 40 } }] }

// Existence
{ profileUrl: { exists: true } }

Opt-in packages​

The core handles documents. Install packages for the rest:

npm install @monlite/fts       # full-text search
npm install @monlite/vector    # vector / semantic search
npm install @monlite/kv        # cache, locks, pub/sub, sorted sets
npm install @monlite/queue     # durable job queue
npm install @monlite/cron      # scheduled jobs (time zones, jitter)
npm install @monlite/postgres  # the same API on a networked Postgres
npm install @monlite/sync      # local-first cloud sync
npm install @monlite/realtime  # stream live queries to clients over SSE
npm install @monlite/wasm      # browser / SQLite-WASM
npm install @monlite/electron  # Electron: DB in main, shared to renderers over IPC

Plus npx @monlite/studio app.db — a zero-install web inspector for any monlite database.

Where next​