Toolless

Toolless is a file-based document database for Node.js that provides a MongoDB-compatible API without requiring servers or external dependencies.

Quick Start

npm install toollessdb

import { createClient } from "toollessdb";

const client = createClient({ path: "./data" });
const db = client.db("myapp");
const users = db.collection("users");

await users.insertOne({
  name: "Alice",
  email: "alice@example.com",
  age: 30,
});

const results = await users.find({ age: { $gte: 18 } }).toArray();

Features

• MongoDB-Compatible API - Familiar query syntax with find, update, delete and all standard operators
• Zero Infrastructure - No servers to configure. Data stored in JSONL files
• Type-Safe - Full TypeScript support with type inference
• CLI & Studio - Command-line tools and web UI for managing data

Use Cases

• Prototypes and MVPs
• Desktop applications (Electron, Tauri)
• CLI tools with persistent state
• Development and testing
• Small web apps (under 100K documents)
• Edge functions with file-based storage

Limitations

• Single-process access per database
• Collections should stay under 100K documents
• No distributed systems or sharding
• No aggregation pipelines
• No multi-collection transactions

For larger systems, migrate to MongoDB or PostgreSQL.

Community

• GitHub: habibthadev/toolless
• Issues: Report bugs and request features
• License: MIT