Overview

Mondel is a thin, type-safe ODM for MongoDB: schema definition, typed collection access (db.users), Zod validation on writes, and a CLI for indexes/validators. Filters and operators stay native MongoDB — no new query language, no document hydration magic.

Optimized for serverless (Cloudflare Workers, Vercel Edge, Lambda) and solid on long-running Node servers.

Features

• Typed collections — schema names and fields inferred with TypeScript
• Serverless-ready — factory client; no startup index sync required
• Zero magic — plain objects in/out; escape hatch via getCollection()
• Zod validation — strict | loose | off on writes
• CLI pull/push — introspect DB or apply indexes/JSON Schema in CI
• MongoDB 6–8 — works with current server and driver majors

Installation

npm install mondel mongodb zod

Requirements

| | | | --- | --- | | Node.js | 18+ (20+ recommended with mongodb@7) | | MongoDB | 6.0 – 8.x | | Peers | mongodb ^6 || ^7, zod ^3.24 || ^4 |

Quick Start

import { defineSchema, s, createClient, type SchemasToClient } from "mondel";

export const userSchema = defineSchema("users", {
  timestamps: true,
  fields: {
    email: s.string().required().email().unique(),
    name: s.string(),
    role: s.enum(["ADMIN", "USER"]).default("USER"),
  },
});

export const schemas = [userSchema] as const;
export type DbClient = SchemasToClient<typeof schemas>;

const connect = createClient({
  serverless: true,
  schemas,
  validation: "strict",
});

export async function getDb(uri: string): Promise<DbClient> {
  return connect(uri);
}

// Usage
const db = await getDb(process.env.MONGODB_URI!);
await db.users.create({ email: "[email protected]", name: "Ada" });
const user = await db.users.findOne({ email: "[email protected]" });
await db.close();

Push indexes in deploy/CI (not on cold start):

npx mondel push --uri "$MONGODB_URI" --schema ./dist/schemas.js --apply-validators

Collection API

| Method | Notes | | ------ | ----- | | findOne / findMany / findById | Native filters; select = runtime projection | | create / createMany | Defaults applied when validation on | | updateOne / updateMany / updateById | Plain objects → $set; validates $set | | findOneAndUpdate | Atomic find + update | | bulkWrite | Native bulk (not re-validated) | | deleteOne / deleteMany / deleteById | { soft: true } sets deletedAt | | count / exists / aggregate | | | getCollection() | Full driver access |

Documentation

Full site: https://mondel-orm.pages.dev

| | | | --- | --- | | Concepts | guide/concepts | | Compatibility | guide/compatibility | | Upgrade 0.2 → 0.3 | guide/upgrade-0.2-to-0.3 | | Comparison | guide/comparison | | CLI | guide/cli | | AI agents | llms.txt · full text | | Changelog | CHANGELOG.md |

What Mondel is not

• Not Mongoose (no middleware / virtuals / populate)
• Not Prisma (no relation engine or full data migrations)
• Not a replacement for learning MongoDB query operators

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT © Edjo