An admin panel for your existing database — Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB (and ClickHouse, read-only). One Rust binary · config as code · no framework, no ORM, no Node runtime.

cartapel.com · ▶ Live demo (no login) · 📖 Docs · 🚀 Deploy to Render

_{Forty seconds of the live demo: filter, quick view, relations, Customize → HCL, dashboard.}

Why

Every project ends up needing an admin: support wants to fix a record, ops wants a dashboard, someone needs to flip a flag. The usual options are heavy (Retool), framework-locked (Django admin) or become a second codebase to maintain. If you already have Grafana for metrics, cartapel sits beside it — CRUD and a few SQL tiles in the same panel, not another product to learn.

cartapel takes a different bet: your database schema is the source of truth, and every customization is code you version — a directory of small HCL files reviewed in pull requests, not a GUI you click. The binary introspects your database — Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB, picked from the connection URL — and renders a complete panel; config only refines it.

# screens/sales/orders/screen.hcl — this is the whole customization
list {
  columns = ["id", "customer_id", "status", "total"]
  filters = ["status"]
  sort    = "-placed_at"
}

field "status" {
  widget = "badge"
  params = { colors = { paid = "green", refunded = "red" } }
}

action "refund" {
  label   = "Refund"
  kind    = "update"
  set     = { status = "refunded" }
  confirm = "Refund {count} orders?"
}

An empty screen.hcl is already a working table: pagination, search, Notion-style filter chips on any column, sorting, inline editing, and foreign keys rendered as links carrying the related record's name, not a bare id.

Try it

# One binary, via Homebrew (macOS and Linux):
brew install de-rus/tap/cartapel
CARTAPEL_DB=postgres://user:pass@host/db cartapel serve --config ./config

# Or the bundled demo (Acme dataset + a worked config), nothing touches your machine:
git clone https://github.com/De-Rus/cartapel && cd cartapel
docker compose up            # → http://localhost:8686/admin

# Or against YOUR database, in one command:
docker run -p 8686:8686 \
  -e CARTAPEL_DB=postgres://user:pass@host/db \
  -e CARTAPEL_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  -e CARTAPEL_ADMIN_EMAIL=you@example.com -e CARTAPEL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=change-me \
  ghcr.io/de-rus/cartapel serve

# The URL names the engine — nothing else to configure:
#   CARTAPEL_DB=mysql://user:pass@host/db     → MySQL or MariaDB

First boot with an empty config drops you into a setup wizard that discovers your tables, suggests groups and writes the HCL for you — ready to commit.

What you get

Introspected CRUD	Lists, detail pages, inline child tables from reverse FKs, bulk actions, CSV/JSON import & export. Views and PK-less tables degrade to read-only.
Roles & permissions	Per-table / per-column / row-level, in versioned config. Role inheritance (extends), multi-role union, a per-role customize grant, and a read-only view-as mode to verify what a role sees.
Audit & revert	Every write logged with before/after diffs. Field edits revert in one click — and the revert is itself audited.
Pages & dashboards	Stat tiles, charts and tables from SQL ({{window}} and friends), grids of panels in HCL — each from inline SQL, a named query, a table, or a source (HTTP, directory, bucket). Embed an existing Grafana panel in an iframe when you already have one. Read-only transactions, timeouts, no JavaScript.
Theming & i18n	Presets (including a faithful Django look), your accent, per-mode design tokens — one hot-reloaded HCL block. Every viewer picks their language from the user menu (the browser's applies by default); your own labels carry per-locale translations next to the thing they name.
Several databases at once	Postgres, MySQL and MariaDB are fully editable — the connection URL's scheme picks the engine. ClickHouse joins as a read-only source for browsing and SQL. Extra databases are source blocks; their tables share one sidebar.
Ops-friendly	Single static binary or Docker image. Config hot-reloads from disk (a broken edit keeps the last good config). cartapel check validates the bundle in CI. Optional public_role for kiosk/demo access.

Security model, in short

Sessions are HMAC-signed HttpOnly cookies; passwords are argon2id; login is rate-limited. Every SQL identifier is validated against the introspected schema and every value is a bound parameter. Secret-shaped columns (*token*, *secret*, *password*, …) are auto-masked for everyone, admins included. Dashboard SQL runs READ ONLY with statement timeouts; webhook actions are HMAC-signed. Details: docs → Security.

Build from source

cd ui && pnpm install && pnpm build && cd ..   # SPA, embedded into the binary
cargo build --release                          # → target/release/cartapel

The name

A cartapel is old Spanish for the bundle of papers that holds all the records. That's the job: one place where everything in your database is findable, readable and safely editable.

MIT licensed.