Schema API reference

@danceroutine/tango-schema provides the model, metadata, and model-hook contracts the rest of Tango builds on.

Top-level exports

The root export includes:

• namespace barrels domain and model
• Model
• RelationBuilder
• ModelRegistry
• helpers c, i, m, and t
• ModelDefinition
• schema domain types such as Field, FieldType, RelationDef, RelationType, IndexDef, and ModelMetadata
• model hook types such as ModelWriteHooks

Model(definition)

Model(definition) creates and registers a Tango model, combining a Zod schema with the metadata and model lifecycle hooks that the rest of the framework relies on.

Required fields

• namespace: string
• name: string
• schema: z.ZodObject<...>

Optional fields

• table?: string
• fields?: Field[]
• indexes?: IndexDef[]
• relations?: (builder: RelationBuilder) => Record<string, RelationDef>
• ordering?: string[]
• managed?: boolean
• defaultRelatedName?: string
• constraints?: unknown[]
• hooks?: ModelWriteHooks<TModel>

Behavior

Model(definition) does the following:

• throws if namespace is empty
• throws if name is empty
• throws if table is provided but empty
• derives table from name when omitted
• infers fields from the Zod schema when fields is not provided
• preserves model write hooks on the returned model object
• registers the result in the global ModelRegistry

Model lifecycle hooks

The hooks field is where application code declares model-owned write lifecycle behavior.

Available hooks include:

• beforeCreate
• afterCreate
• beforeUpdate
• afterUpdate
• beforeDelete
• afterDelete
• beforeBulkCreate
• afterBulkCreate

before* hooks may return normalized data to persist.

after* hooks run after the write succeeds.

These hooks execute inside Model.objects, so they apply across serializers, resources, scripts, and direct manager usage.

ModelRegistry

The registry stores and resolves models, especially for relations.

Public methods include:

• register(model)
• registerMany(models)
• get(namespace, name)
• getByKey(key)
• resolveRef(ref)
• clear()

Metadata helpers

t

Field-level helper functions used inside schemas. The current docs and examples use these most often:

• t.primaryKey(...)
• t.unique(...)
• t.default(...)
• t.foreignKey(...)

m

Model-level metadata helpers:

• m.ordering(...)
• m.managed(value)
• m.defaultRelatedName(value)
• m.indexes(...)
• m.constraints(...)
• m.uniqueTogether(...)
• m.indexTogether(...)
• m.merge(...)

c and i

These helpers support constraint and index construction. They are lower-level tools than Model(...) and the field helpers, so most applications will only need them when table metadata becomes more specialized.

Related pages

• Models and schema
• Model lifecycle hooks
• Migrations