CLI & environment

cartapel is one binary with three subcommands:

cartapel serve --db postgres://… --config ./admin      # run the panel
cartapel user add you@example.com --role support       # create/update a user (offline)
cartapel check --config ./admin --db postgres://…      # validate config — CI-ready

Every serve and check flag has a matching environment variable, so in a container you can drive them entirely from the environment.

cartapel serve

Runs the admin server.

cartapel serve \
  --db postgres://user:pass@host:5432/mydb \
  --schema public \
  --config ./admin \
  --data ./cartapel-data \
  --listen 0.0.0.0:8686
# → panel on http://0.0.0.0:8686/admin  (the default mount path)

Flag	Env var	Default	Description
--db	CARTAPEL_DB	—	Postgres connection URL. Falls back to the URL of the primary source in config/cartapel.hcl (which supports env:NAME / ${NAME} interpolation).
--schema	CARTAPEL_SCHEMA	public	Schema to introspect. Falls back to the primary source's schemas list.
--config	CARTAPEL_CONFIG	—	Directory of HCL config files. Optional — without it, no tables are exposed.
--data	CARTAPEL_DATA	./cartapel-data	Directory for cartapel's own SQLite state (users, sessions, audit, config history).
--base-path	CARTAPEL_BASE_PATH	/admin	URL prefix the panel is served under. Injected into the SPA at runtime, so one build serves any prefix. A trailing slash is trimmed; pass '' (or /) to serve at the domain root.
--listen	CARTAPEL_LISTEN	127.0.0.1:8686	Address and port to bind.
--secure-cookies	CARTAPEL_SECURE_COOKIES	true	Sets the Secure attribute on session cookies. Keep on behind HTTPS; pass --secure-cookies=false for local plain-HTTP development.

The connection URL and schema resolve in this order: CLI flag → environment variable → config file.

When more than one schema is introspected, a table name that is unique across them keeps its bare key; a name that collides is keyed as schema.table.

cartapel user add

Create or update a panel user without the server running. Useful for provisioning and password resets.

cartapel user add <email> [--role <role>] [--password <pw>] [--data <dir>]

Argument / flag	Env var	Default	Description
<email>	—	—	The user's email (lowercased on save). Positional, required.
--role	—	admin	Role(s) to assign — comma-separate for several (support,billing; permissions union). Not validated offline: a name with no matching role in auth.hcl simply grants nothing.
--password	CARTAPEL_PASSWORD	generated	The password. When omitted, a strong random password is generated and printed once.
--data	CARTAPEL_DATA	./cartapel-data	The state directory to write to.

Running user add for an existing email updates that user's role and/or password.

cartapel check

Validate a config directory without running the server. Exit 0 = valid; exit 1 with the errors printed — ready for CI.

cartapel check --config ./admin                    # parse + validate the bundle
cartapel check --config ./admin --db postgres://…  # + verify every configured
                                                  #   table/column against the
                                                  #   live schema

Flag	Env var	Default	Description
--config	CARTAPEL_CONFIG	—	The config directory to validate. Required.
--db	CARTAPEL_DB	—	When given, every configured table is verified to exist, and list/search/sort/readonly columns are verified to be real columns.
--schema	CARTAPEL_SCHEMA	primary source's schemas	Narrows the live check to one schema.

Run it in CI next to your migrations: config drift against a schema change becomes a red build instead of a silently broken panel.

Environment variables

Beyond the per-flag variables above, cartapel reads:

Variable	Required	Purpose
CARTAPEL_SECRET_KEY	Yes	The app signing root for session cookies. cartapel refuses to start if this is unset and [cartapel].secret_key is also unset. See Security.
CARTAPEL_ADMIN_EMAIL	No	Email for the bootstrap admin created on first run. Defaults to admin@localhost.
CARTAPEL_ADMIN_PASSWORD	No	Password for the bootstrap admin. When unset, a random one is generated and logged.
CARTAPEL_ADMIN_ROLE	No	Role(s) for the bootstrap user (comma-separate for several). Defaults to admin; a public demo can bootstrap a restricted role (e.g. a read-mostly demo role from auth.hcl) instead.
CARTAPEL_WEBHOOK_SECRET	No	HMAC secret for signing outbound webhook actions (X-Cartapel-Signature).
CARTAPEL_DB_TX_POOL	No	Set to 1 to force transaction-pooler mode (disables sqlx's prepared-statement cache). Auto-detected for Supabase's port 6543 pooler.
RUST_LOG	No	Standard tracing filter. Defaults to cartapel=info,tower_http=warn.

Config values can read the environment

Anywhere config accepts a value, env:NAME or ${NAME} is replaced with the environment variable NAME. This is how you keep secrets — the DB URL, the secret key — out of committed HCL. See Configuration overview.

Health check

serve exposes an unauthenticated health endpoint for load balancers at {base-path}/api/health, returning {"ok": true}.