Resources

What is a resource?

A resource in Tensei represents the principal way to interact with your database, API and CMS dashboard. It will always correspond to a single database table or collection in your application.

For each resource, Tensei will generate smart and customisable CRUD functionality a REST or GraphQL API. Resources can also be managed from the Tensei CMS dashbaord.

Defining Resources

To define a resource, use the resource function. The first argument is the name of the resource. It returns a resource highly customisable resource instance.

import { resource } from '@tensei/core'

const Post = resource('Post')

Each resource maps to a database table or collection. By default, the Post resource would connect to a database table called posts, which matches the plural, lowercase of the resource name. The Tag resource would connect to the tags table, and the Customer Expense resource would connect to the customer_expenses table.

Registering Resources

The resources method on the Tensei instance can be used to register all resources of the application. It takes in an array resource instances.

import { tensei, resource } from '@tensei/core'

tensei()
    .resources([
        resource('Tag'),
        resource('Post'),
        resource('Author'),
        resource('Comment'),
    ])

Defining resource fields

The .fields() method can be used to define resource fields. Each field corresponds to a table column, and will show up on the CMS dashboard. All possible fields such as number(), text(), textarea() etc. are exported from the @tensei/core package. This is how you will define fields for a Tag in your application.

import { tensei, resource, boolean, text, textarea } from '@tensei/core'

tensei()
    .resources([
        resource('Tag')
            .fields([
                text('Name'),
                boolean('Active'),
                textarea('Description')
            ])
    ])
    .db(...)
    .start()

For more information about defining and cutomising fields, see the fields documentation.

Resource Groups

By default, all resources show up on the dashboard sidebar in a Resources group. If you would like to separate resources into different sidebar groups on the dashboard, you may call the group method on the resource instance.

import { tensei, resource } from '@tensei/core'

tensei()
    .resources([
        resource('Post').group('Blog & Writing'),
        resource('Author').group('Blog & Writing'),
    ])

Now the Post and Author resources would be in the same group. This is a great way to separate concerns on your dashboard.

Pagination

If you'd like to customize the data shown on each resource's "per page" filter menu, you can do so by calling the .perPageOptions() method on the resource:

resource('Post')
    .perPageOptions([25, 50, 100, 250, 500])

The number of rows fetched on the resource page would default to the first perPageOption defined.

Hiding resources

If you don't want a resource to appear in the sidebar, you may call the .hideFromNavigation() method on your resource instance:

resource('Post')
    .hideFromNavigation()

Disabling timestamps

By default, all registered resources have 3 fields: ID(), timestamp('Created At') and timestamp('Updated At'). To disable the timestamps registered by default, you may call the .noTimestamps() method.

resource('Product')
    .noTimeStamps()