Five-minute quickstart

From executable to first record.

Run one Trestle process with SQLite or PostgreSQL, create the first administrator, define a typed collection and write through the HTTP API.

Install and start

curl -fsSL https://trestle.dev/install.sh | sh
~/.local/bin/trestle

Trestle listens on 127.0.0.1:8090 and creates its data directory on first start.

Choose SQLite or PostgreSQL

Open http://127.0.0.1:8090. SQLite is embedded and can continue directly to administrator creation. For PostgreSQL, select PostgreSQL, enter a connection URL for an empty PostgreSQL 16-18 database, and choose Test and use PostgreSQL. Trestle validates the server, persists the owner-only bootstrap configuration, and asks you to restart before credentials are shown.

postgres://trestle:CHANGE_ME@127.0.0.1:5432/trestle?sslmode=require

After restart, reload the dashboard and create the administrator. Competing setup requests produce exactly one administrator on either provider.

Define a collection

In Collections, create notes with required text fields named title and body. Trestle materializes provider-appropriate physical storage while keeping display names out of SQL identifiers.

Create a scoped credential

In Integrations, create a service credential with records:read and records:write. Copy the secret once.

Write and query

curl http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/v1/collections/notes/records \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"values":{"title":"First note","body":"Trestle is ready."}}'

curl 'http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/v1/collections/notes/records?limit=25' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Before exposing Trestle

Terminate TLS, configure trusted proxies explicitly, protect SQLite files or PostgreSQL credentials, create a tested backup, and review the security boundary.

PostgreSQL deployment guide Build the complete example