DMART

Features

DMART is a versatile Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) platform designed to simplify data management for modern applications. It acts as a central repository for structured data, documents, and media, providing a unified interface for storage, retrieval, and collaboration.

1. Unified Data Management

DMART treats data as a first-class citizen, moving beyond traditional database constraints.

Flexible "Entries" The core unit of data — can represent anything from a simple record to a complex document.

Structured & Unstructured Seamlessly handle JSON data alongside text, markdown, and binary files (images, PDFs, videos).

Diagrams in Markdown A fenced code block marked mermaid in Markdown content is drawn as a diagram in CXB and the catalog.

Attachments Associate any number of files (documents, media) directly with an entry, keeping related information together.

Hierarchical Organize data into intuitive Spaces and Subpaths, similar to a file system.

Multilingual Display names and descriptions are kept in English, Arabic and Kurdish side by side.

graph TD
    Space["Space: Project/Business"] --> Folder["Folder: Category"]
    Folder --> Entry["Entry: Core Data Unit"]
    Entry -->|Has| Meta["Metadata: ID, Tags, Owner"]
    Entry -->|Has| Payload["Payload: JSON, Text, Binary"]
    Entry -->|Has| Attachments["Attachments: Files, Media"]
    Attachments --> Doc["Document.pdf"]
    Attachments --> Img["Image.png"]

2. Powerful Search & Discovery

Finding information is effortless with DMART's robust search engine.

  • Full-Text Search: Search across all data, including structured fields and text content. Plain words find whole and partial words in any of their forms, correct misspellings, and come back best match first — in Arabic too, even when typed on an English keyboard layout.

  • Advanced Filtering: Filter results by tags, creation dates, authors, and specific data attributes.

  • Native SQL Search: Search runs inside the database — full-text and trigram indexes on PostgreSQL, FTS5 on SQLite — with no separate search cluster. Semantic search is available on PostgreSQL with pgvector and an embedding API.

3. Collaboration & Workflow Automation

Built-in tools to manage processes and teamwork.

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Open
    Open --> InProgress: start
    InProgress --> Review: submit
    Review --> Resolved: approve
    Review --> InProgress: request_changes
    Resolved --> [*]

  • Ticketing System: Track work as tickets that move through states (e.g., "Open," "In Progress," "Resolved"). Each arrow above is a workflow action, and a ticket changes state when one is applied with progress-ticket (see Tickets & Workflows).

  • Custom Workflows: Define custom state transitions and rules to match your specific business processes. Each transition can be limited to roles or require a resolution, and a state can be closed yet keep a reopen transition, so a delivered ticket reads closed until someone with the right role reopens it.

  • Assignments: Hand an entry or ticket over to another user, who becomes its owner. Assigning changes only the owner, and leaves a ticket's state as it is.

  • Collaborators & Locks: Name the people working on an entry in its collaborators, and lock a ticket while you work it, which records you as its processed_by and holds off other editors.

  • Comments & Reactions: Collaborate directly on data entries with threaded comments and emoji reactions.

4. Comprehensive Access Control

Security is granular and configurable to match organizational needs.

  • Spaces: Distinct workspaces to isolate data and projects.

  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Define roles (e.g., Admin, Editor, Viewer) with specific permissions.

  • Granular Permissions: Control access at the folder or even individual entry level (Create, Read, Update, Delete), down to individual fields, and limit what a role reads and writes to the records that match a filter.

  • Protected Administrator Sign-In: Administrator accounts sign in with a password and a one-time code, and self-registration stays off until an instance turns it on.

5. Integration & Extensibility

Designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing ecosystem.

sequenceDiagram
    participant App as External App
    participant API as DMART API
    participant Plugin as Plugin System
    participant Store as Data Store

    App->>API: Create New Entry (POST)
    API->>Plugin: Execute Pre-Save Hook
    Plugin-->>API: Allow, or Veto the Write
    API->>Store: Persist Data
    Store-->>API: Success
    API->>Plugin: Execute Post-Save Hook (Notification, in the Background)
    API->>App: 200 OK

  • RESTful API: A comprehensive, documented API for interacting with every aspect of the platform.

  • Plugin Architecture: Extend functionality with custom plugins for logic, validation, or external integrations.

  • Solution Packs: csdmart's source repository carries ready-made applications defined as data, in packs/: org, catalogue, assets, servicedesk, approvals, kb, datamart and the optional comms. Each is a space with its folders and schemas, plus the roles and permissions that make it usable. packs/install.sh installs every pack but comms, or --packs a,b with their dependencies; --public opens a pack's public roles to anonymous users, --plugins deploys its plugins, --dry-run prints the plan, and --force allows a downgrade. packs/reset.sh removes a pack.

  • Pack Updates Keep Your Edits: Each install leaves a receipt at management/packs/<name>, with a checksum of the grants, state and names of each space, role and permission it ships. A later update never overwrites or deletes an entry, space, role or permission you changed: one the pack changed too is skipped and named, and one the new version drops is kept if you changed it. Installing over rows already there keeps those that differ from the pack.

  • Comparing Packs With an Instance: packs/diff.sh compares packs with a live instance and changes nothing. It reports each row a pack ships as the same, differing (the fields are named, not their values), changed on the instance, or missing, counts the records beyond the pack in each folder, and exits 1 on any difference. It reads by folder and shortname, never walks a space and never reads a user, so it is safe against production. It signs in as dmart unless --admin names another account, which must be of type admin or exempt to see management's roles and permissions (see The Management Space).

  • AI Agents (MCP): An optional MCP server lets AI agents query, read and write entries as a signed-in DMART user, within that user's permissions.

  • Single Sign-On & Directory: DMART can be the OpenID Connect provider for your other applications, and serve its users and groups over LDAP to mail servers and other directory clients. A directory replica on another host keeps answering LDAP sign-ins while the primary is down.

  • Realtime Notifications: The live notification path today is realtime WebSocket broadcast. The realtime_updates_notifier plugin runs on data changes and workflow events and pushes update messages to connected WebSocket clients subscribed to the relevant space/subpath channels — no polling required. Each listener hears only of records it may read.

  • Email/SMS Delivery: One-time codes are sent over SMTP (MAIL_HOST) and an SMS gateway (SEND_SMS_OTP_API), each with its own on/off switch. General notification delivery is not built yet: the notification plugins (system_notification_sender, admin_notification_sender, local_notification) are registered no-op stubs pending a push/SMS/SMTP gateway pipeline. A subprocess plugin can already send email through DMART's mail settings.

6. Deployment & Operations

Built for flexibility and reliability in various environments.

  • Container-Ready: Ships as a single self-contained, Native-AOT binary (no runtime to install), also packaged into a single-process Docker/Podman image for consistent environments.

  • Signed Packages: Install and upgrade through signed RPM (Fedora, RHEL 9), DEB and APK (Alpine) package repositories.

  • Air-Gapped Friendly: The self-contained binary bundles the server, CLI, and admin UIs with no external service dependencies — on SQLite, not even a database server — ideal for on-premises and isolated networks.

  • SQL-Backed: A single PostgreSQL or SQLite database is the source of truth for all entries, users, and attachments — providing transactional integrity and reliability.

  • Health Checks: Liveness and readiness endpoints for load balancers, a dmart selfcheck smoke test for a running server, and dmart check to find stored content the server cannot read or serve.

  • Portable Import/Export: Round-trip any Space to and from a human-readable spaces/ + .dm file layout (packaged as a zip) for seeding, migration, and backup — ideal for longevity and moving data between deployments.