Overview

Inspired by Grocery CRUD. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Grocery CRUD / John Skoumbourdis.

Grocery Restable exposes the tables of a relational database as a REST API and gives you three ways to shape it:

1. Code — a fluent, Grocery CRUD compatible PHP API (setRelation(), requiredFields(), callbacks …).
2. GUI — a phpMyAdmin-style admin interface; definitions are stored in SQLite.
3. Auto — every table is exposed automatically, relations are detected from foreign keys.

When the same resource exists in more than one place, code wins over GUI, and GUI wins over auto.

How it fits together

HTTP ─► CodeIgniter 4 or a plain PHP front controller
          │
          ▼
     Grocery Restable engine ── authentication, permissions, row-level security
          │                     query parsing (select, filters, order, paging)
          │                     validation, callbacks, uploads
          ▼
     Your database (MySQL / MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite)

     SQLite store ── settings, GUI resources, connections, API keys, admin users

Requests are translated into parameterized SQL against the tables you exposed. Everything you configure in the GUI is stored in a small SQLite database next to your application; resources defined in code are versioned with your application. See Architecture for the details.

Where to start

If you want to…	Read
Try it in ten minutes	Getting started
Install it in CodeIgniter 4	CodeIgniter 4
Run it without a framework	No framework
Shape endpoints in code	Resources and Relations
Call the API from a client	REST API reference
Lock it down for production	Authentication and Security
Move an existing Grocery CRUD project	Migrating from Grocery CRUD

Vocabulary

Term	Meaning
Resource	A table or view exposed as an endpoint (/api/{resource}). Its name defaults to the table name.
Relation	A link from a resource to another table: belongs_to, has_many or many_to_many.
Embedding	Returning related rows inside the parent row: select=*,offices(city).
Role	Who calls the API: anon (no credentials), authenticated, service_role (full access) or any custom role.
Permission	select, insert, update, delete granted to a role on a resource or bucket.
Scope	A row-level filter computed per request (row-level security).
Bucket	A named folder of files exposed under /api/storage/{bucket}.
Connection	A database the API reads from: a CodeIgniter database group or one configured in the GUI.
Engine / driver	The database product (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite) and the PHP extension used to reach it (PDO, MySQLi).