Katnip

Katnip is a minimal full-stack, edge-first framework for building isomorphic React apps.

• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Project Structure
• Plugins

Introduction

Katnip is a minimal full-stack, edge-first framework for building isomorphic React apps.

It uses Mikrokat for server and deployment functionality, and adds:

• Isomorphic React rendering, (SSR + hydration). (Using ISOQ).
• Database access layer and automatic schema migration. (Using QQL).
• Database admin. (Using Quickmin).
• Direct server function calls from the client (JSON-RPC).

Katnip aims to let you build and deploy immediately while staying lightweight and easy to understand.

Getting Started

1. Create a new project

mkdir my-app
cd my-app
npx katnip init

You might also want to install the katnip command line tool globally:

npm install -g katnip

2. Install project dependencies

Using npm:

npm install

You can also use yarn or pnpm, of course. If you use pnpm you need to approve builds using:

pnpm approve-builds

This is because katnip uses better-sqlite3 for local development.

3. Run the development server locally

npm start

Your app will be available at http://localhost:3000.

And you can find the database admin at http://localhost:3000/admin. The default username and password is admin/admin.

4. Add an edge platform, test and deploy

To add support for an edge platform, run:

katnip init --platform=cloudflare

To run your app in a simulated edge envirunment, run:

katnip dev --platform=cloudflare

Then, to deploy:

katnip deploy --platform=cloudflare

In the examples above, cloudflare is the edge provider. Supported edge providers are cloudflare, vercel, fastly and netlify.

Project Structure

By default, a Katnip project has:

my-app/
  src/
    main/
      index.jsx     # Client entrypoint
      server.js     # Server entrypoint
  quickmin.yaml     # Database schema
  katnip.json       # Project configuration

Also, see the default katnip.json file for information about how to enable features.

Plugins

Katnip has plugin support. Plugins are installed as regular npm packages, and Katnip will auto-discover them, so no further installation is needed. Available plugins:

• katnip-payment - Enables stripe payments.