The BAQ CLI is an helpful tool to manage the record types used in your application, whether you choose to create them yourself or use existing ones.
For a list of all commands see the CLI reference.
The BAQ CLI is distributed as an NPM package. It can be installed globally:
npm install -g @baqhub/cli
baq help
Or locally within a project:
npm install -D @baqhub/cli
npx baq help
For the BAQ CLI to manage record types in an application, it needs a project file. To create it, initialize a new project like this:
baq init
This command will prompt for the following questions:
Where should the project be created?
Point it towards the root folder of the app project.
What’s the user-facing name of this project?
This is the name users will see when they authorize the app.
What type of project is this?
Different files will be generated depending on the project type.
Where should the project files live?
This is where auto-generated JS/TS files will be created.
After this, a baq.json file is created:
{
"name": "Cool BAQ app",
"type": "ts-react",
"path": "src/baq",
"record_types": {}
}
This file can be updated with other CLI commands, or directly by hand.
Record types are BAQ records themselves and are identified by their author entity and record ID. A record type can be imported into the current project like this:
baq add types.baq.dev+fe727f22b5c34fb185a370449e4f0128
This is a record type for a single task in a todo app and its intrinsic name task will be used by default. If needed, a different name can be specified during import:
baq add types.baq.dev+fe727f22b5c34fb185a370449e4f0128 todo
This will name it todo instead within the current project. This can be helpful to avoid conflicts, or for naming consistency within your app.
When a record type is no longer needed it can be removed from the current project by its short name like this:
baq remove task
When a suitable record type does not already exist, it can be necessary to create and publish a new one. It starts by creating the JSON file with the record type definition:
{
"name": "task",
"icon_name": "task_alt",
"schema": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"content": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"title": {
"description": "Title of the task.",
"type": "string",
"max_length": 128
},
"completed": {
"description": "Whether the task was completed.",
"type": "boolean"
}
}
}
}
}
}
The record type can now be added to the project:
baq add src/types/task.json
This will track the local type in the project file, getting it ready for publication, and generate the corresponding code files.
The record type needs to be published to a BAQ server before the app can be made publicly available. Authenticate the BAQ CLI with a server by providing an entity:
baq login username.host.com
This will open a browser window to complete the authentication flow and obtain a code that can then be copy/pasted to complete the process.
All local record types can be published with a single command:
baq publish
This will create new records for newly created types, and update existing records for modified types.
Whenever changes are made to the baq.json project file, or to local record type definitions, the corresponding auto-generated code files may need to be updated.
This can be triggered manually with:
baq
Or automatically every time a change is detected with:
baq watch