Entities

An entity is a table in your database. Create as many entities as your application needs.

Go to Settings → Data Model and click + New Entity. Give it a name in snake_case (e.g. blog_posts, customers, orders).

Every entity automatically gets:

An id field (auto-incrementing integer, primary key)
created_at and updated_at timestamps (managed automatically)
A full REST API (list, get, create, update, delete)

Field types

When adding a field, choose a storage type that determines how the data is stored in the database.

Type	Stored as	Use for
`varchar`	VARCHAR(255)	Short text — names, slugs, status values, email addresses
`text`	TEXT	Long text — descriptions, body content, notes
`integer`	INTEGER	Whole numbers — quantities, counts, ages
`float`	FLOAT	Decimal numbers — prices, ratings, percentages
`boolean`	BOOLEAN	True / false flags — active, published, in_stock
`date`	DATE	Calendar dates (no time)
`timestamp`	TIMESTAMP	Date and time
`jsonb`	JSONB	Arbitrary JSON structures — metadata, config objects
`geo`	GEOMETRY	Geographic coordinates (latitude / longitude)
`file`	FK to files	An uploaded file — image, document, video
Foreign key	INT (FK)	A link to a record in another entity

varchar — multi-select options

A varchar field can be configured as a multi-select with a fixed set of allowed values. Define the options when creating the field. Values are stored as a varchar[] array.

Display types

When adding a field, you also choose how it renders in the dashboard UI. The display type is separate from the storage type and does not affect the API.

Display type	Best for
Input (default)	Standard single-line text
Textarea	Multi-line plain text
Rich text	Long-form content with formatting (supports Markdown)
Date picker	Dates and date-times
JSON editor	Structured JSON with syntax highlighting
Map	Geographic fields — renders a map picker
File upload	Files — supports multiple files, public/private

Field options

When creating or editing a field, you can set:

Option	Description
Required	The field must have a value when a record is created
Unique	No two records can have the same value for this field
Immutable	The field cannot be changed after the record is created
Indexed	Adds a database index — improves query performance on large datasets
Name field	This field is used as the human-readable display name for the record in the dashboard

Relationships (foreign keys)

Link entities together by adding a Foreign key field. Choose:

Entity — which entity this field points to (e.g. categories)
Display — which field from the related entity to show in the dashboard

When creating a record via the API, pass the ID of the related record:

json

POST /entities/products/items
{
  "name": "Wireless Headphones",
  "price": 79.99,
  "category": 3
}

The category field stores the integer ID of the related category record.

Filtering by relationship

http

GET /entities/products/items?filter[category]=3

Row-level security (RLS)

When creating an entity, you can enable Row-Level Security. This locks each record to the user who created it — other users cannot read or modify records they do not own, regardless of role permissions.

Enable RLS on the entity settings page, or when creating via the CLI:

bash

anythink entities create orders --rls

Modifying entities

You can add new fields to existing entities at any time. The new field is added to the database immediately and all existing records get a null value for it.

Deleting a field permanently removes it and all its data. There is no undo.

The live API

After saving any change to your data model, the API updates immediately. Open the API Documentation link in your dashboard to see the current endpoints and try them live.

Understanding my APIs Data Types reference

Data Modelling