Your first application

Create a project, add an app, and serve its first route. You need Go 1.26.10+. The standard project includes accounts and requires PostgreSQL 18 for runtime commands.

#Ask your agent

Copy this prompt into your coding agent. Change myapp and the module path for your project.

Read https://cicadel.fauzaanu.com/en/0.2.0/llms.txt and its quick-start guide.
Create a Cicadel application in ./myapp with module example.com/myapp.
Use the dev version and record the resolved Go dependency versions.
Add a local notes app, register it in project/apps.go, and serve GET /notes/.
Configure PostgreSQL for the standard account and migration workflow. Do not overwrite an existing project.
Run the application checks and tests, start it locally, and verify /notes/ over HTTP.
Tell me the URL, files changed, and checks that passed.

For another version, use the agent setup page. Its links and prompts follow the documentation version selector.

#Create the project yourself

Run these commands from the directory that will contain myapp:

export GOPRIVATE=github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel
go run github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel/cmd/cicadel@main startproject myapp example.com/myapp
cd myapp
go get github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel@main
go mod tidy
export DATABASE_URL='postgres://USER:PASSWORD@localhost/myapp?sslmode=disable'
export CICADEL_DEBUG=true
export CICADEL_SECURE_COOKIES=false
go run manage.go migrate
go run manage.go check
go run manage.go runserver

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000. Stop the server with Ctrl-C before continuing. The repository currently requires authorized GitHub access. Configure Git authentication and GOPRIVATE=github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel for direct module access. There are no tagged releases yet, so @main selects the development branch. Commit go.mod and go.sum to keep the resolved version. Inside the project, go tool cicadel uses that project’s CLI.

#Add and register an app

From myapp, create a notes app:

go tool cicadel startapp notes

Add the app to project/apps.go, retaining the core registrations:

package project

import (
    "example.com/myapp/apps/notes"
    "github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel"
    "github.com/fauzaanu/cicadel/contrib/formsets"
    "gorm.io/gorm"
)

func InstalledApps(_ *gorm.DB) ([]cicadel.App, error) {
    return []cicadel.App{
        formsets.App(),
        notes.New(),
    }, nil
}

Change example.com/myapp if you chose a different module path. Creating a folder or importing a package does not register an app; this list does.

#Check the route

The generated apps/notes/urls.go connects /notes/ to Index:

func URLs() []urls.Route {
    return urls.Include("/notes", "notes",
        urls.Path("GET", "/", "index", Index),
    )
}

Start the app, then fetch the route from a second terminal:

go run manage.go apps
go run manage.go check
go test -race ./...
go run manage.go runserver

curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/notes/
# {"app":"notes"}

#Make changes

For UI changes, install the CSS tool once, then rebuild and check:

go tool cicadel ui css install
go tool cicadel ui build
go tool cicadel ui check --json

Restart the server after rebuilding. For automatic rebuilds and restarts, run go tool cicadel dev instead of runserver.

#Choose your next step

• Render a component.
• Add htmx interactions.
• Install a reusable app.
• Add PostgreSQL migrations.
• Start with sign-in screens.

When ready to deploy, build go build -o bin/server . and follow deployment configuration. The local debug and insecure-cookie settings above are for development only.