I've been spending my spare time working on Node.js tools for SurrealDB. The 2 that are showing some promise are named Surrealigrate (a migration tool) and Bole ORM. I may end up changing their names, but for now that's what I'm calling them.

I've talked about both of them, so I'll try not to repeat myself. I've worked on expanding Surrealigrate some, but I need to work on some more advanced schemas and namespace setups to really push it. This week I've mostly focused on Bole ORM. The word "bole" is a kind of clay or the trunk of a tree, which both are kinda fitting for an ORM, in my opinion. My approach with all of my SurrealDB tools has been to take advantage of the built-in info queries and generate database specific code. A lot of tools, especially ORMs, are very standardized and strict with their implementation. I don't want that. I want to be able to generate query tools that are specific to the database and then be able to adapt them however I want, without the ORM getting in my way.

Bole ORM is a simple CLI tool and it generates a query class built for that specific database, down to table names and specific fields' validation. It doesn't require any kind of schema files or anything that manually needs to be done by the developer, it's all generated by inspecting the database. While it currently generates a class, to be used as object-oriented, I also plan to make it configurable, so if you prefer chaining, it'll do chaining, instead of objects. It resembles Prisma in the way the queries look, when using the class output, but it's simplier and I'm pretty sure the where and fields (Prisma's select object) objects may support more options than most Prisma methods support.

All the Flavors uses Prisma, so I'm very familiar with it and it's actually powerful when combined with a GraphQL parser. That is why I'm mimicking Prisma, to some extent, but also adapting with some things I feel Prisma could have done better. Once the feature set is, well, set, then I'll go into more details for the actual capabilities...but there's also a catch. I plan to make the generator modular, so you can plugin whatever you want, leave out whatever you don't, or add custom modules. This means you can basically design your own ORM with modules and just let Bole generate it.

I want to add some additional utilities to each. For Surrealigrate, I want it to be able to identify potential missing indexes and suggest changes. I also want it to be able to use either schema within SurrealDB or from a library, such as Zod, to generate migrations. The other side of that, I want Surrealigrate to be able to generate a Zod schema and validations for use outside of Surrealigrate, in Bole ORM or just in your application in general. As far as Bole ORM additions, I want to generate documentation for the specific database, and Bole ORM itself, and I want to do automated tests, primarily on data integrity, but also for the application itself.

The idea behind these tools is to simplify development and have something you use when you need them, but they get out of your way when you don't. There's no point in making someone run a bunch of CLI commands, when you can use Surrealist to design your database, then just run a simple command that does everything else. That's the way I see it anyway. If extra commands are involved, they are optional and they add value, like a command to generate a Bole query that you can paste into your application. That could just be a plugin though, and then it just updates a generated export and you never have to touch it again. Working for you, not against you.