Getting Started with dForge

Create Your Account

Head to dforge.app and sign up with your email. You’ll get a workspace with your first tenant ready to go.

If you’re self-hosting, see the Self-Hosted Setup guide.

Install Your First Module

After signing in, you’ll see the Module Installer. This is your app catalog — browse available modules and install what you need.

Recommended starting point:

1. CRM — if you manage customers, leads, and sales
2. HR — if you need employee and leave management
3. Finance — if you handle invoicing and payments
4. WMS — if you manage inventory and procurement

Click Install on any module. dForge creates the database tables, views, menus, security roles, and seed data automatically.

Explore Your App

Once a module is installed:

1. Navigation — the left sidebar shows menus defined by your installed modules. Click through to see data views.
2. Views — most entities have a grid view (spreadsheet-like) by default. Click a row to open the card view (detail form).
3. Create a record — click the + New button in any grid to create your first record.
4. Edit and save — click into any field in the card view. Changes are saved when you click Save.

Understand the Key Concepts

Concept	What it means
Tenant	An isolated workspace with its own PostgreSQL database. Each organization is a tenant — no shared tables, no shared metadata.
Module	A package of entities, views, menus, roles, and logic. Like an “app” you install into a tenant.
Entity	A business object (Account, Invoice, Employee). Maps to a real database table generated from metadata.
View	A way to display entity data: grid, kanban, calendar, list, or gallery. The detail form is called the card.
Folder	A dynamic filtered view, not a container. Records appear in a folder when they match its filter, and the same record can appear in many folders at once.
Role	A set of permissions (Select, Insert, Update, Delete, Clone) applied to entities, actions, reports, and folders.

Set Up Users and Roles

1. Go to Administration > Users to invite team members
2. Assign roles from the installed modules (e.g., crm.sales_rep, finance.viewer) — modules ship their own roles
3. Roles are additive — a user with multiple roles gets the union of all permissions; nothing is ever revoked
4. Roles can be scoped to a folder — e.g., a user can be hr.manager globally but only hr.viewer inside the “Executives” folder

Build Your Own Module

The fastest way to create a custom module is with AI:

1. Run npx @dforge/create-module my-module to scaffold a workspace
2. Open the folder in Claude Code (or any AI coding assistant) — the built-in skill knows every dForge convention
3. Describe what you need: “Build me a support ticket tracker with priority, SLA, and assignment”
4. Review the generated metadata, run npm run validate, and package it
5. Install your .dforge package into any tenant

Already have an existing database? Use the schema importer: npx @dforge/create-module my-module --from-sql ./legacy.sql — it produces a rough-cut module that AI finishes for you.

You can also build modules visually with Studio — a browser-based designer that requires no CLI or code files.

Next Steps

• User Guide — learn how to work with data, views, and filters
• Administration — manage tenants, users, roles, and folders
• Core Concepts — understand entities, views, folders, and the metadata model
• Views Guide — understand grid, card, kanban, calendar, and list layouts
• Fields Reference — all available field types and their options
• Studio Guide — build modules visually in the browser (alternative to AI authoring)