Getting Started

Mantis

A lightweight, pluggable Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) library built in C++
Portable. Embeddable. Syncable. Built for speed and extensibility.

🔧 Overview

Mantis is a modular, lightweight C++ library designed to power modern backend systems in embedded devices, desktop tools, or standalone server deployments. Inspired by systems like PocketBase and Supabase, Mantis focuses on:

• Minimal runtime footprint
• SQLite as the default local database (with optional MySQL/PSQL support)
• Built-in authentication and access control
• Auto-generated REST APIs
• Pluggable sync layer (client-server)
• Embeddable as a reusable C++ library

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• Language: C++
• Database: SQLite (default), MySQL/PSQL (planned)
• Build System: CMake
• Packaging: Docker + CLI
• Sync: WebSocket / REST delta sync (planned)

‍NOTE: On windows, we use mingw not MSVC due to some feature incompatibility. For mingw, it requires at least v13 with support for std::format.

</blockquote>

🚀 Getting Started

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/allankoechke/mantis.git
cd mantis
cmake -B build
cmake --build build
./build/mantisapp serve -p 5000

You can also embed Mantis as a library in your own C++ project:

#include <mantis/app/app.h>
 
int main(const int argc, char* argv[])
{
    mantis::MantisApp app(argc, argv);
    app.init();
    return app.run();
}

Check mantis/examples for a sample

Admin Dashboard

Mantis ships with a lightweight admin dashboard available on <host>:<ip>/admin and restricted to admin login only. By default, in your setup, you need to create a admin user account using the CLI command:

mantisapp admins --add <email>

With the admin account created, we can then use it to log in to the admin dashboard. The dashboard allows for easy management of:

• **__CRUD__** on admin accounts
• **__CRUD__** on system logs [WIP?]
• **__CRUD__** on database tables (only the tables managed by mantis).
• **__CRUD__** on records in the tables.
• Schema & database migration [WIP?]

By default, admin auth tokens expire after an hour, but it's configurable in the settings tab of the dashboard.

___admin dashboard snapshot___

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📁 Project Structure

mantis/
├── include/
│   └── mantis/         # Public API headers
├── src/                # Internal implementation
├── examples/           # Embedding examples
├── tests/              # Unit & integration tests
├── docker/             # Docker deployment
└── CMakeLists.txt

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md and open an issue or PR.