🗄️

Point it at Postgres

Introspects tables, keys and enums from your live schema. Lists get pagination, search, sorting, Notion-style filters, saved views and a ⌘K palette automatically.

📝

Code-first config

A directory of HCL files — one per table, folders become sidebar groups. Columns, widgets, layouts and actions are all reviewable in your repo.

🔒

Auth, roles, audit

Built-in users and sessions. Per-table, per-field and row-level permissions, column masking, and an audit log of every write with before/after diffs.

📊

Dashboards

SQL-defined stat tiles, sparklines, charts and tables — every query runs in a read-only transaction with a statement timeout.

🧩

Extensible

Drop custom field widgets and full-screen pages into the config bundle as JS web components. No rebuild, no npm.

🚀

One-file deploy

A single static binary or Docker image. Bake the config in read-only, or mount a volume and edit it live from the in-app builder.

What is cartapel?

cartapel is an open-source, single-binary admin panel for an existing PostgreSQL database — a Django-admin / Forest / Retool alternative you run yourself. Point the Rust binary at your database, register the tables you want to expose, and you get a polished CRUD panel: paginated lists, search, filters, detail pages, inline child rows, bulk actions, dashboards, roles and an audit log.

Try it without installing

A hosted demo runs the bundled Acme dataset at https://demo.cartapel.com — no login needed.

Two ideas make it different:

Your database is the schema. cartapel introspects your live Postgres for columns, types, primary keys and foreign keys. There is no separate model definition to keep in sync.

Customization is code. Everything you tune — which columns show in a list, how a field renders, who can edit what — lives in a directory of HCL files you commit to your repo. The in-app visual builder writes the same HCL, so even click-made changes are versioned and reviewable.

60-second quickstart

cartapel needs three things: a Postgres URL, a signing secret, and (optionally) a directory of config. It runs without config — but the panel is an allowlist, so you will see no tables until you register at least one.

DockerCargo

bash

docker run --rm -p 8686:8686 \
  -e CARTAPEL_DB="postgres://user:pass@host:5432/mydb" \
  -e CARTAPEL_SECRET_KEY="a-long-random-string" \
  -e CARTAPEL_ADMIN_EMAIL="[email protected]" \
  -e CARTAPEL_ADMIN_PASSWORD="change-me" \
  -v "$PWD/admin:/config:ro" \
  ghcr.io/de-rus/cartapel:latest \
  serve --config /config --schema public

bash

export CARTAPEL_SECRET_KEY="a-long-random-string"
export CARTAPEL_ADMIN_EMAIL="[email protected]"
export CARTAPEL_ADMIN_PASSWORD="change-me"

cargo run --release -- serve \
  --db postgres://user:pass@host:5432/mydb \
  --schema public \
  --config ./admin \
  --data ./cartapel-data

Open http://localhost:8686/admin, log in with the bootstrap admin, and you are in.

The secret key is required

cartapel refuses to start without a secret key — it signs your session cookies. Set CARTAPEL_SECRET_KEY (or [cartapel].secret_key in the config). See Security.

Where to next

Getting started — install, first run, bootstrap the admin user, and register your first table.

Configuration overview — the HCL config model: folders as groups and the reserved config/ folder.

Fields & widgets — the full widget library with parameters and examples.

Roles & permissions — the granular permission matrix, masking and row filters.

cartapelAn admin panel for your existing Postgres