MAmadmax108·Jun 21, 2022Submission
Mostly ORMless: Ergonomic Postgres from TypeScript
7 points · Open discussionjawj
mostly-ormless
TypeScript2019–2022
jawj / mostly-ormless
mostly-ormless
Ergonomic Postgres from TypeScript
4Distinct people
8Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
202GitHub stars
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What it is
Ergonomic Postgres from TypeScript
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What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 12:54:37 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year8 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-07-23 16:06:45 UTC to 2022-06-21 05:56:08 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
8 sourcesI came here to mention a similar approach, which last time I looked was a very compelling experiment[1], but its original author has actually built out a real library, Zapatos[2] which looks very very good.
[1]: https://github.com/jawj/mostly-ormless
[2]: https://jawj.github.io/zapatos/
In Show HN: PgTyped – Typesafe SQL in TypeScript and PostgresThanks for sharing these projects. So far I only knew tsql.
I'm in the avoid code generation camp as well as typically my build processes are complex enough and don't need another step.
But I am not quite satisfied by the existing query generators. Also after having read https://github.com/jawj/mostly-ormless/blob/master/README.md I wanted to put Postgres' `json_agg` function into use as it looks like it is simplifying a lot of the nested objects stuff one serves over REST APIs.
So I designed my own https://github.com/hoeck/typesafe-query-builder - with special support for `json_agg` and `json_build_object`. Its working already in production and for me, the dev UX is unprecedented in working with database code. Typechecks and autocompletions really boost it.
But to be honest, I'm a bit worried about Typescript compiler bugs and compilatio
Read the rest
n times when the project grows.
I agree that too much abstraction from your SQL database is a world of frustration. I feel that ‘query builders’ themselves can end up feeling like too much abstraction, albeit of a slightly different kind. I’ve written about an alternative approach for TypeScript [1] and am in the process of turning it into an npm module (complete with nested queries that produce LATERAL joins, with all results fully typed).
[1] https://github.com/jawj/mostly-ormless/blob/lateral/README.m... (note: I’ve updated the code and write-up here, but not yet the instructions for setting it up, so YMMV on that)
In The Troublesome Active Record PatternShow HN: Mostly ORMless – Ergonomic Postgres from TypeScript
14 points · Open discussionAgreed. Helpers (and indeed types) can make working with SQL an actual pleasure. You do need to learn the SQL, though. (My TypeScript/Postgres solution, in this vein: https://github.com/jawj/mostly-ormless/blob/master/README.md).
In What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)I've been working on a simple ORM alternative for TypeScript + Postgres which addresses the first two complaints (takes SQL as source of truth, and doesn't take over migration or connection management), and am really happy with it so far: https://github.com/jawj/mostly-ormless
In ORMs Are BackwardsShow HN: Mostly ORMless – Ergonomic Postgres from TypeScript
2 points · Open discussion