Waterline is a next-generation storage and retrieval engine, and the default ORM used in the Sails framework.

It provides a uniform API for accessing stuff from different kinds of databases, protocols, and 3rd party APIs. That means you write the same code to get and store things like users, whether they live in Redis, MySQL, MongoDB, or Postgres.

Waterline strives to inherit the best parts of ORMs like ActiveRecord, Hibernate, and Mongoose, but with a fresh perspective and emphasis on modularity, testability, and consistency across adapters.

Looking for the version of Waterline used in Sails v0.12? See the 0.11.x branch of this repo. If you're upgrading to v0.13 from a previous release of Waterline standalone, take a look at the upgrading guide.

Installation

Install from NPM.

  $ npm install waterline --save

Overview

Waterline uses the concept of an adapter to translate a predefined set of methods into a query that can be understood by your data store. Adapters allow you to use various datastores such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, etc. and have a clear API for working with your model data.

Waterline supports a wide variety of adapters, both core and community maintained.

Usage

The up-to-date documentation for Waterline is maintained on the Sails framework website. You can find detailed API reference docs under Reference > Waterline ORM. For conceptual info (including Waterline standalone usage), and answers to common questions, see Concepts > Models & ORM.

Help

Check out the recommended community support options for tutorials and other resources. If you have a specific question, or just need to clarify how something works, ask for help or reach out to the core team directly.

You can keep up to date with security patches, the Waterline release schedule, new database adapters, and events in your area by following us (@sailsjs) on Twitter.

Bugs  

To report a bug, click here.

Contribute

Please observe the guidelines and conventions laid out in our contribution guide when opening issues or submitting pull requests.

Tests

All tests are written with mocha and should be run with npm:

  $ npm test

License

MIT. Copyright © 2012-2017 Mike McNeil, Balderdash Design Co., & The Sails Company

Waterline, like the rest of the Sails framework, is free and open-source under the MIT License.