Part 2: Models

TaskFlow needs two things: projects to group work, and tasks inside them. Generate both:

zeython make model Project
zeython make model Task

This created app/Models/project.py and app/Models/task.py, each with a single placeholder name column, and registered them in app/Models/__init__.py automatically — a model has to actually be imported somewhere for SQLAlchemy to know it exists, and this saves you remembering to do that by hand every time. Open app/Models/project.py:

from sqlalchemy import String
from sqlalchemy.orm import Mapped, mapped_column

from zeython import Model


class Project(Model):
    __tablename__ = "projects"

    name: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(String(255))

That's a real Active Record model, not a wrapper around one — Model is a genuine SQLAlchemy declarative base (see Database & Migrations for the full API), so anything you know from plain SQLAlchemy still applies. What Model adds on top: id, created_at, updated_at, and soft-delete (is_deleted/deleted_at) columns on every model automatically, plus an async Active Record API — Project.create(...), Project.find(id), Project.all(), instance.update(...), instance.delete().

Add validation

A project needs a name — enforce it with a declarative rule instead of an if statement in every place that creates one:

from sqlalchemy import String
from sqlalchemy.orm import Mapped, mapped_column

from zeython import Model, max_length, required


class Project(Model):
    __tablename__ = "projects"
    __rules__ = {
        "name": [required(), max_length(255)],
    }

    name: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(String(255))

__rules__ runs automatically on every save() — both create() and update() — and raises a ValidationException (a 422 with a field-by-field error dict) on failure. See Validation for the full list of built-in rules and how to write your own.

Now app/Models/task.py — a task has a title and a done flag:

from sqlalchemy import Boolean, String
from sqlalchemy.orm import Mapped, mapped_column

from zeython import Model, max_length, required


class Task(Model):
    __tablename__ = "tasks"
    __rules__ = {
        "title": [required(), max_length(255)],
    }

    title: Mapped[str] = mapped_column(String(255))
    done: Mapped[bool] = mapped_column(Boolean, default=False)

(Task doesn't belong to a Project yet — that's the whole subject of Part 4. For now they're two independent models, which is deliberately simpler for learning the CRUD basics first.)

Migrate

Zeython's migrations are Alembic under the hood, with autogeneration already wired to your models — you write the model, Alembic diffs it against the database and writes the migration for you:

zeython db revision -m "add projects and tasks"
zeython db migrate

The first command writes a new file under migrations/versions/ (open it — it's plain, readable Alembic code, not a black box); the second actually applies it. Confirm the tables exist by creating one directly:

curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8000/projects \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name": "Website Redesign"}'

That'll 404 — there's no /projects route yet. Models don't expose routes on their own; that's next.

Continue to Part 3 — Controllers & Routes.