Tutorials overview

examples/ holds runnable, zero-infrastructure apps. Most run with go test ./examples/.... The larger apps (showcase, todo, bookings, demoapp, external-sms) are separate Go modules; build and test them by path.

New to Zever? Do Build a booking API first, then Explore the showcase app for DSL breadth.

Full apps

App	What it proves
examples/bookings	Marketplace domain (hosts list spaces, guests book them); walked through in Build a booking API. payment stub charges, billing, ratelimit, idempotency, lock, and queue compose in one booking request.
examples/showcase	DSL depth: every schema feature in one shop schema, HTTP and gRPC parity; walked through in Explore the showcase app.
examples/demoapp	Battery breadth: every service battery behind one HTTP API; adapter swaps stay config-only.
examples/todo	Auth-gated notes app with HTTP and gRPC parity tests. JWT auth is enforced identically on both transports.

Focused ORM ports

Each app proves one ORM feature end to end against sqlite.

App	What it proves
examples/transactions	orm.WithNestedTx savepoint-nested transfers: a failed inner transfer rolls back to its savepoint, not the outer transaction.
examples/bulk_upsert	Multi-row Insert, OnConflict(...).DoUpdate/DoNothing, Returning().ExecReturning: one round trip, per-row conflict resolution.
examples/pagination	Offset paging (Limit/Offset/Count) and keyset paging (AfterTuple, cursors): stable traversal with concurrent inserts.
examples/recursive_cte	orm.WithRecursive: an org chart in one query, with no N+1.
examples/json_query	orm/json/sqlite nested-key, key-exists, and array-membership filters.
examples/fts	orm/fts/sqlite full-text MATCH with rank-ordered search.
examples/ormdrill	Cursors, preload, joins, subqueries, and expressions without codegen (the raw builder).

Every service battery (cache, queue, db, payment, ai, vectorstore, and the rest in the Config reference) also has ExampleXxx tests against its zero-infra adapter, with one happy path and one error path in // Output: comments. Browse them in core/<battery>/example_test.go.

Run the examples

# examples that live in the `examples` module
go test ./examples/...        # zero infra, no setup needed
go test -race ./examples/...  # with the race detector

# the separate full-app modules, from the repo root (workspace-aware)
go test ./examples/showcase/...
go test ./examples/todo/...
go test ./examples/bookings/...

# one focused port
go test ./examples/pagination/... -v

Expected output:

ok    github.com/zenta-dev/zever/examples/pagination/cmd/app  0.008s
ok    github.com/zenta-dev/zever/examples/fts/cmd/app  0.010s
ok    github.com/zenta-dev/zever/examples/transactions/cmd/app  0.004s
...

The signal is ok on every line and no FAIL.

The focused ports open sqlite directly, so they ignore DB_ADAPTER. To run the ORM against postgres, use the ORM suite: POSTGRES_DSN='postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/test?sslmode=disable' go test ./orm/.... Features a dialect lacks fail closed with dialect.ErrUnsupportedByDialect.

Set up the full apps

cd examples/bookings
zever db migrate --adapter=sqlite --dsn=data/bookings.db schema/bookings.zen
go run ./db/seed

OK applied 8 statement(s) via sqlite
{"time":"...","level":"INFO","msg":"seed complete"}

cd ../showcase
zever db migrate --adapter=sqlite --dsn=data/showcase.db schema/shop/shop.zen
go run ./db/seed

OK applied 16 statement(s) via sqlite
{"time":"...","level":"INFO","msg":"seed complete"}

JWT secret required

Both servers require AUTH_JWT_SECRET of at least 32 bytes and fail closed without it. Seed and worker output is JSON log lines (the slog adapter).

How an example is laid out

1. schema/*.zen (full apps only) holds the domain. Never hand-edit generated/ next to it.
2. wiring.go lists explicit typed providers.
3. db/seed holds idempotent demo data; cmd/server and cmd/worker mirror zever generate server / zever generate worker.
4. Tests sit next to the code they cover. The // Output: comments are runnable claims, not prose.

Troubleshooting

go test ./examples/... fails on a clean clone

Cause: a half-downloaded module cache, which all modules share. Fix: run go mod download, then re-run.

A postgres-backed run fails to connect

Cause: the server is down, the database is missing, or the DSN is wrong. Fix: confirm the server and database, or unset the vars to fall back to sqlite.

Tests drifted after a schema edit

Cause: generated code is stale. Fix: regenerate with zever compile (see the showcase tutorial) and re-run zever db migrate --dry-run for fresh DDL. Never hand-edit generated/.

Related

Build a booking APIGuided walkthrough of the bookings flow.

Explore the showcase appA tour of DSL breadth over HTTP and gRPC.

ConfigurationLayered config.

ContainerHow examples resolve services.