Tango

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Installation ​

The packages most application developers need are listed here, along with the way the examples in this repository are assembled.

Runtime requirements ​

  • Node.js 22 or newer
  • pnpm 9 or newer

If you want to run PostgreSQL integration tests, you will also need a PostgreSQL instance. The repository uses Docker for that workflow.

Install only what you need ​

Tango is split into packages so you can adopt it incrementally.

Typical API application ​

bash
pnpm add zod
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-config
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-schema
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-orm
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-migrations
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-resources

Then install the adapter and database driver for your stack:

bash
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-adapters-express express
pnpm add better-sqlite3

or:

bash
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-adapters-next next react react-dom
pnpm add better-sqlite3

For PostgreSQL:

bash
pnpm add pg

Testing support ​

bash
pnpm add -D @danceroutine/tango-testing vitest

OpenAPI document generation ​

bash
pnpm add @danceroutine/tango-openapi

Install the OpenAPI package when you want the application to publish a machine-readable API document for Swagger UI, client generation, or external tooling.

CLI support ​

bash
pnpm add -D @danceroutine/tango-cli

Install the CLI package if you want to run tango make:migrations, tango migrate, tango plan, tango status, or tango new inside your application workspace. New Tango applications usually install @danceroutine/tango-cli and @danceroutine/tango-config together so the CLI can infer migration defaults from tango.config.ts.

Package overview ​

  • @danceroutine/tango-config exports defineConfig, loadConfig, the core config types, and the schemas behind tango.config.ts.
  • @danceroutine/tango-schema exports Model, ModelRegistry, and metadata helpers such as t, m, c, and i.
  • @danceroutine/tango-orm exports the transparent runtime, Model.objects, QuerySet, Q, and lower-level query primitives.
  • @danceroutine/tango-migrations exports Migration, op, MigrationRunner, MigrationGenerator, and schema diffing support.
  • @danceroutine/tango-resources exports APIView, Serializer, ModelSerializer, generic CRUD views, ModelViewSet, FilterSet, and paginators.
  • @danceroutine/tango-openapi exports the OpenAPI generator and schema mappers used to publish a machine-readable API description.
  • @danceroutine/tango-testing exports mocks, factories, integration harnesses, and Vitest helpers.
  • @danceroutine/tango-cli exports the tango executable plus the programmatic module-composition API behind it.

Install from a local clone ​

If you are working from a local clone of Tango:

bash
pnpm install
pnpm build

That builds all workspace packages and makes the examples and docs runnable from the local workspace.

Verify the installation ​

These commands are the quickest sanity check:

bash
pnpm typecheck
pnpm test

If you want the full integration matrix:

bash
pnpm test:integration:all

Choose an example application ​

If you are deciding where to start:

  • Use the Express blog example if you want to see the entire stack in a conventional JSON API.
  • Use the Next.js example if you want to see Tango inside App Router route handlers.

The example package scripts are already configured:

  • @danceroutine/tango-example-express-blog-api
  • @danceroutine/tango-example-nextjs-blog

Released under the MIT License.

Copyright © 2025 Pedro Del Moral Lopez