Your first project

Navigate to your project directory and run:

civex init

This creates a _civex/ directory with:

_civex/
  config.toml     # database URL and settings
  civex.db        # SQLite database (if not using PostgreSQL)
  objects/        # content-addressed file storage
  workflows/      # YAML workflow definitions
  plugins/        # custom Python plugins

Database provisioning

By default, civex init tries to set up a Docker-managed PostgreSQL container automatically — it only does this if a PostgreSQL driver and Docker are both available — falling back to SQLite otherwise. Force SQLite explicitly with:

civex init --sqlite

To connect to an existing PostgreSQL server instead of a Docker-managed one, run civex db setup-postgres after civex init (auto-detects a local server and prompts interactively, or pass --url to skip prompts):

civex db setup-postgres --url postgresql+psycopg2://user:pass@host:5432/dbname

See PostgreSQL for the full setup story, including why every project needs its own database.

Next step

Take the five-minute tour →