rowfence

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Installing ​

rowfence is a command, rowfence, and an SDK for your app's language. Nothing is installed in the database: the command writes migrations, and your migration tool runs them as the owner of your tables. Any PostgreSQL 16, 17 or 18 works, managed or not.

The command ​

Only an alpha is published so far, 0.1.0-alpha.1, and a plain install doesn't get it. Ask for it:

npm i -D rowfence@next         # the command with its own Python: a TypeScript app needs none
pip install --pre rowfence     # the command and the Python SDK: rowfence[fastapi], [sqlalchemy], ...
docker run --rm -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" -v "$PWD:/work" ghcr.io/rowfence/rowfence:0.1.0-alpha.1 migrate

Once 0.1.0 is out, the plain npm i -D rowfence, pip install rowfence and ghcr.io/rowfence/rowfence get it.

  • npm: the package brings a Python of its own, built for your machine: Linux (glibc and musl, x64 and arm64), macOS (x64 and arm64) and Windows x64. Run it as npx rowfence, or from a script in package.json.
  • pip: Python 3.11 or newer. The same package is the Python SDK, and its extras bring what each part of it uses: rowfence[fastapi], rowfence[sqlalchemy], rowfence[psycopg], rowfence[asyncpg]. The command needs none of them.
  • Docker: the image holds the command and git (rowfence review asks git for the base branch's files), and works in the folder mounted at /work. It runs as root unless told otherwise: -u makes the files it writes yours.

rowfence --version says which version runs, and on which Python.

Alphas and release candidates ​

A version that isn't final is never what a plain install gets. Ask for it:

npm i -D rowfence@next
pip install --pre rowfence

and the image by its version (ghcr.io/rowfence/rowfence:0.2.0-rc.1). An alpha is for trying a version early: anything in it may still change. A release candidate is meant to become the release as it is. The changelog says what each version changed, and under Upgrading what to do when moving to it.

From the repository ​

git clone https://github.com/rowfence/rowfence
export PATH="$PWD/rowfence/core/cli:$PATH"

The command is Python 3.11 or newer and its standard library: there is nothing else to install.

Then ​

rowfence init finds the stack (Next.js, Prisma, Drizzle, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Alembic), writes rowfence.toml for its migration tool, adds the SDK's packages and says which line to change.

  • Getting started: from a schema to a policy, its tests, the edit loop and the first migration.
  • Your stack: the SDK's packages for it (Python, TypeScript), and where each line goes.
  • Editors: highlighting and the language server for VS Code, Zed, Helix and Neovim.