Domain Types Reference

Reepolee defines a canonical vocabulary of column types — domain types — that every new table and column should draw from. Rather than each table inventing its own width for a name or its own precision for money, you pick the domain type that matches the column's meaning and get a consistent SQL type across your schema.

The types are defined as typed constants in config/domain_types/mysql.ts and config/domain_types/sqlite.ts. A few diverge per dialect (noted below); the rest use the same SQL definition in both files. The generator reads these constants to produce correct column metadata, and the suffix/prefix conventions in config/db_structure.ts (DATE_SUFIXES, DATETIME_SUFIXES, BOOLEAN_PREFIXES, IMAGE_SUFFIXES, FILE_SUFFIXES) tell the generator how to recognise each column's role without manual tagging.

Primary Keys & Identifiers

Basic SQL Types

Generic type aliases (not business domains) used by Studio's column picker and default table scaffolding. Reachable via exact column-name match.

Names

Text & Descriptions

Monetary, Percent & Quantities

Temporal

SQLite stores date as ISO-8601 TEXT (YYYY-MM-DD) rather than a native DATE affinity.

Config constants: DATE_SUFFIXES = ["_on", "_by"], DATETIME_SUFFIXES = ["_at"].

Duration & Time Units

Boolean

Config constant: BOOLEAN_PREFIXES = ["is_", "has_", "can_"].

Contact

Codes & Identifiers

Address

Security & System

Media

image_path stores a browsable path (e.g. /images/teams/members/xyz.webp), not the binary. Rendered as <image-upload> in forms and image_thumbnail() in grids. file_path stores a browsable document path; rendered as <file-upload> in forms and file_link() in grids.

Config constants: IMAGE_SUFFIXES = ["_image"], FILE_SUFFIXES = ["_file"].

How Domain Types Are Used

Column-name matching

When you name a column first_name, the generator matches it against the domain type registry and picks up the correct SQL type, form widget, and display formatting. You don't need to annotate columns — the name alone drives the match.

Suffix and prefix conventions

Columns ending in _at are recognised as timestamps, _on and _by as dates, is_ / has_ / can_ as booleans, _image as image paths, and _file as file paths. These conventions live in config/db_structure.ts and the generator uses them to produce the right form control and grid cell for each column.

Comment-driven overrides

For columns that need a specific form widget regardless of their domain type, add a MySQL column comment. Two formats are supported:

• Plain word — e.g. COMMENT 'autocomplete', COMMENT 'textarea', COMMENT 'markdown'
• JSON — e.g. COMMENT '{type: "autocomplete", rows: 6}'. JSON takes precedence over plain-word when both are present.

SQLite uses column type naming for the same purpose (MARKDOWN type → markdown editor).

Auditing

Run the Check domain compliance tool from reeman to audit your schema against this taxonomy:

bun reeman
# → Tools & Maintenance → Check domain compliance

It reports columns whose types deviate from the canonical domain types so you can plan migrations. The check reads config/domain_types/ at runtime — the same constants the generator uses — so there's no second source of truth to maintain.

Extending

The domain type registry is your project's own source file. To add a project-specific type, edit config/domain_types/mysql.ts and config/domain_types/sqlite.ts together:

// config/domain_types/mysql.ts
export const DOMAIN_TYPES = {
    // ... existing types ...
    npi_number: "VARCHAR(10)",  // US National Provider Identifier
} as const;

New types are immediately available to generators, Studio, and the compliance checker. Keep the two dialect files in sync — the TypeScript compiler will catch a missing key, but not a different SQL value for the same key.