Installation

Meet Elegant

Elegant is a TypeScript database toolkit that brings simplicity and expressiveness to database interactions. Built with developer experience in mind, Elegant provides an intuitive API for working with relational databases without sacrificing power or flexibility.

Whether you're building a REST API, web application, or data-intensive service, Elegant streamlines your database operations with a fluent query builder, comprehensive migration system, and powerful ORM capabilities.

Why Choose Elegant?

When building modern applications, choosing the right database abstraction layer is crucial. Here's what sets Elegant apart:

Multi-Database Support - Write once, run anywhere. Elegant provides a unified API that works seamlessly across MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and SQLite, allowing you to switch databases without rewriting code.

Type Safety - Built with TypeScript from the ground up, Elegant leverages type inference to catch errors at compile time and provide excellent IDE support with autocomplete and inline documentation.

Developer Experience - Elegant's fluent, chainable API reads like natural language, making database operations intuitive and your code more maintainable.

Zero Dependencies Drama - Elegant is designed to be lightweight and focused, minimizing bloat while maximizing functionality.

Prerequisites

Before installing Elegant, ensure you have the following installed on your development machine:

Node.js (version 16 or higher)
NPM, Yarn, or Bun package manager

Installation

Adding Elegant to Your Project

Install Elegant using your preferred package manager:

Using NPM

npm install @pristine/elegant

Using Yarn

yarn add @pristine/elegant

Using Bun

bun add @pristine/elegant

Setting Up NPM Scripts

Add Elegant commands to your package.json for quick access:

{
  "scripts": {
    "db:migrate": "elegant migrate",
    "db:rollback": "elegant migrate:rollback",
    "db:status": "elegant migrate:status",
    "db:make:migration": "elegant make:migration"
  }
}

Now you can run migrations with simple commands:

npm run db:migrate 
npm run db:rollback

Project Initialization

Quick Start with Init Command

Elegant provides an initialization command that scaffolds your database configuration and directory structure:

Basic Initialization

# install elegant
npm install -g @pristine/elegant
# initialize project 
elegant init

Interactive Initialization

Elegant provides an interactive database configuration workflow. Running the initialization command with the -i or --interactive flag launches a guided command-line interface that walks you through setting up your elegant.config.js file:

elegant init --interactive

Custom Migrations Directory

elegant init --migration-dir ./database/migrations

Example elegant.config.js file.

export default {
  default: 'mysql',
  connections: {
    mysql: {
      dialect: 'mysql',
      host: process.env.DB_HOST || 'localhost',
      port: parseInt(process.env.DB_PORT) || 3306,
      database: process.env.DB_DATABASE || 'elegant_db',
      user: process.env.DB_USER || 'root',
      password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD || ''
    },
    sqlite: {
      dialect: 'sqlite',
      database: 'database/database.sqlite'
    }
  },
  models: {
    lazyLoading: true,
    strictAttributes: false,
  }, 
  migrations: {
    table: 'migrations',
    directory: 'resources/database/migrations',
  },
}

Next Steps

Now that Elegant is installed, you're ready to:

24 October 2025