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What is Builder Backend?

Builder Backend is a platform that turns a structured specification into a complete, production-ready FastAPI project you can download and deploy.

Define your data model, configure authentication, payments, file storage, and deployment—then download a runnable project with migrations, tests, Docker Compose, and CI/CD pipelines.

What You Get​

When you generate a project, you download a complete FastAPI application including:

  • 🗄️ Database schema with Alembic migrations
  • 🔐 Authentication system (built-in or Keycloak SSO)
  • 👥 Authorization (RBAC, ABAC, or PBAC)
  • 💳 Payment processing (Stripe or Razorpay)
  • 📁 File uploads with malware scanning (ClamAV)
  • 📊 Observability (OpenTelemetry traces & metrics)
  • 🚀 Deployment pipelines (GitHub Actions for AWS/Azure/GCP)
  • 🧪 Complete test suite
  • 🐳 Docker Compose for local development

Core Workflow​

graph LR
    A[Define Spec] --> B[Validate]
    B --> C[Preview]
    C --> D[Generate]
    D --> E[Download ZIP]
    E --> F[Run Locally]
    F --> G[Deploy]
  1. Define your spec - entities, fields, relations, auth, payments, etc.
  2. Validate - catch errors before generation
  3. Preview - see what will be generated
  4. Generate - create the FastAPI project
  5. Download - get a ZIP with everything
  6. Run locally - docker compose up and it works
  7. Deploy - use included CI/CD pipelines

Who Is This For?​

🎯 Founders & Product Managers​

Use the dashboard to design your backend without writing code. Visual interface for everything.

💻 Backend Developers​

Use the API to programmatically generate backends. Perfect for automation, templates, and CI/CD.

🏢 Engineering Teams​

Generate consistent, secure backends for multiple projects. Your team maintains the generated code.

🚀 DevOps Engineers​

Get deployment-ready projects with CI/CD, Terraform, and observability included.

Dashboard vs API​

Builder Backend offers two interfaces:

FeatureDashboardAPI
Create projects✅ Visual forms✅ Programmatic
Define data model✅ Visual editor✅ Full control
Configure auth✅ Guided forms✅ Complete spec
Manage permissions✅ Coverage matrix✅ JSON config
Policy simulator✅ Visual✅ Endpoint
Generate & download✅ One click✅ Automated
API tokens✅ Dashboard only❌
Team members✅ Both✅ Both

Choose:

  • Dashboard for learning, visual editing, and manual use
  • API for automation, CI/CD, and programmatic generation

Key Concepts​

Projects​

A project is a single backend application. It has:

  • Entities (like database tables)
  • Fields (columns with types and constraints)
  • Relations (foreign keys between entities)
  • Configuration (auth, payments, storage, deployment)

Spec​

The "spec" is the complete JSON representation of your project. You can:

  • GET /projects/{id}/spec - read it
  • PUT /projects/{id}/spec - write it
  • POST /projects/{id}/validate - check it

Generations​

Every time you generate, Builder Backend records:

  • When it was generated
  • Which spec version was used
  • Download link (valid for 30 days)

View history: GET /projects/{id}/generations

Validation​

Before generation, validate your spec:

  • Circular relations?
  • Invalid field combinations?
  • Auth without roles?
  • Payments pointing to non-existent entity?

Validation returns issues with fix suggestions.

What Makes It Production-Ready?​

Security by Default​

  • Secrets never in the code (environment variables)
  • Audit logs for all changes (append-only)
  • Hash-chained audit trails (tampering detected)
  • Rate limiting built-in
  • SQL injection protection (parameterized queries)

Maintainability​

  • Clean, commented code
  • Type hints throughout
  • Alembic migrations with drift detection
  • Comprehensive test suite
  • Dockerfile with multi-stage builds

Scalability​

  • Async everywhere (FastAPI + asyncpg)
  • Connection pooling
  • Background jobs (payments worker, file scanning)
  • Horizontal scaling ready (stateless, except workers)

Operations​

  • Health checks (/health, /ready)
  • Structured logging (JSON)
  • OpenTelemetry traces & metrics (optional)
  • Docker Compose for local dev
  • Kubernetes manifests (optional)

Pricing & Limitations​

Current Status: Free during beta. Pricing to be announced.

Current limitations:

  • Generated projects are MIT licensed—you own the code
  • No cloud hosting provided (you deploy it yourself)
  • Credentials (SMTP, SMS, S3) never stored—you supply them

Next Steps​

For AI agents: This is the main overview page for Builder Backend. Prerequisites: None—this is the starting point. Related: Dashboard Quickstart, API Quickstart, Core Concepts. Common tasks: New users read this first, then proceed to quickstart guides.

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