Key-Value Store
Custom Entity Store
SQL (EAP)
Cache (EAP)

Defining Custom Entities

Custom entities are user-defined data structures for storing app data. Forge's storage API lets you query data stored in these structures using a wide array of query conditions. These query conditions make it possible to build advanced, complex queries to suit your app's operations.

Custom entities are keys with multiple typed or untyped attributes. You can define attributes with the following data types:

  • string
  • integer
  • float
  • boolean
  • any

Custom entities are defined in your manifest.yml as part of the storage property. Each custom entity also includes an indexes section where you define your query's filter patterns (more on this later). The storage property is a child of app, and uses the following syntax:

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app:
  id: "ari:cloud:ecosystem::app/406d303d-0393-4ec4-ad7c-1435be94583a"
[...]
  storage:
    entities:
      - name: <custom entity name>
        attributes:
          <attribute1>: 
            type: <type>
          <attribute2>: 
            type: <type>
          <attributeN>: 
            type: <type>
        indexes: 
          - <attributeN>
          - <attributeN>
          - name: <by-any-name>
            partition: 
              - <attribute1>
              - <attribute2>
            range: 
              - <attributeN>

After declaring custom entities for your structure data, you can start building complex queries for them. See Querying the Custom Entity Store for more details.

For information about storing data in custom entities, see Storing data in custom entities .

For a detailed tutorial on storing and querying structured data through custom entities, see Use custom entities to store structured data.

Limitations

Custom entities are subject to the following limitations:

CategoryRequirementsLimits
Entity

Entity names:

  • Must only consist of the following characters a-z0-9:-_.
  • Must follow the regex pattern [_a-z0-9:-.]
  • Cannot start with - or _
  • Must not begin or end with a .
  • Must not contain the sequence ..

In addition, an app must not have duplicate entity names.

  • An app can have a maximum of 20 entities
  • Each entity can have a maximum of 7 indexes and 50 attributes
  • Objects that can be stored as custom entities have a maximum depth of 31 and a maximum size of 240KiB (RAW) per object
Attribute Attribute names must follow the regex [_A-Za-z][_0-9A-Za-z]*. Attribute names have a maximum length of 64 characters.
Index

Index names must contain only the following characters a-zA-Z0-9:-_., and must adhere to the following requirements:

  • Must not begin or end with a .
  • Must not contain the sequence ..
  • Must not be empty

In addition, each index name within an entity must be unique.

  • Each entity can have a maximum of 7 indexes
  • The size of combined values for all range attributes on any defined index cannot exceed 900 bytes
  • The size of combined values for all partition attributes on any defined index cannot exceed 1700 bytes
  • Index names cannot be shorter than 3 characters or longer than 50 characters in length.
Keys

A key should:

  • Follow the regex pattern /^(?!\s+$)[a-zA-Z0-9:._\s-#]+$/
  • Contain at least 1 character
  • Not be empty
  • Not contain only blank space(s)
A key can contain a maximum of 500 characters.

Values

Stored entity values must adhere to the following limitations:

TypeRequirements
integerMust be a 32-bit signed integer, with the following value limits:
  • Minimum value: -2,147,483,648
  • Maximum value: 2,147,483,647 (inclusive)
floatThe value must either be 0, or fall within the following range limits (both inclusive):
  • Positive range: 1E-130 to 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999E+125
  • Negative range: -9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999E+125 to -1E-130

We provide 38 digits of precision as a base-10 digit.

string
  • Must be a free-form, URT8 character sequence
  • Must contain at least one non-whitespace character
  • Must not be empty
booleanCan only be true or false
any

The any type supports the following values:

  • string
  • integer
  • float
  • boolean
  • object
  • array

The Custom Entity Store strictly enforces attribute types. Attempting to store a value whose type doesn't match its field will result in an error (for example, when you try to set a string value to an attribute with an integer type).

Entity and index deletion

Once you've deployed your app, any entities, attributes, or indexes included in your manifest can no longer be deleted. If you do, Forge will return an error. We are working on addressing this in a future update.

You can still add new attributes and indexes to an existing entity. Doing so will not count as an entity deletion.

Indexes

While the entities property assigns multiple attributes to each key, indexes sets which attributes to create indexes for. Attributes with indexes are optimized for your queries; as such, you should create indexes based on the query patterns you intend to use.

Index types

You can declare either a simple or named index.

A simple index specifies one attribute (which you can use to reference the index in your queries):

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indexes:
  - <attribute>

A named index allows you to optimize for more complex query patterns. Named indexes use the following parameters:

ParameterRequired? Description
name
YesUsed to reference the index in your queries.
range
YesOptimizes your index for the use of query conditions. This parameter can only have one attribute.
partition
NoOptimizes your index for exact matches. This parameter can have multiple attributes.

The range and partition parameters can be used together or alone; both accept all data types (except for any). If you use either or both, you must set a name.

The following snippet shows the basic syntax for a named index:

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indexes:
  - name: <value>
    range: 
      - <attribute>
    partition: 
      - <attribute1>
      - <attribute2>
      - <attribute3>

You can set a maximum of 7 indexes per entity. See Limitations for more details.

Deploying apps with indexes

If your app uses indexes, the forge deploy command will send an indexing request to Forge's hosted storage service. This storage service will then create or update indexes as necessary while your app's code is deployed. The indexing process's duration scales with your data set's size, from a minimum of 5 minutes for small data sets.

The indexing process is independent of the rest of the deployment. As such, the forge deploy command will normally complete while the indexing process is still ongoing. Until the indexing process completes, you won't be able to install your app on any sites.

To check the status of the indexing process on an environment (namely, development or staging), run:

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forge storage entities indexes list -e <environment>

The indexing process is complete once all indexes have an ACTIVE status.

Example entity

The following manifest.yml excerpt shows a custom entity named employee with several attributes and indexes:

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app:
  id: "ari:cloud:ecosystem::app/406d303d-0393-4ec4-ad7c-1435be94583a"

  storage:
    entities:
      - name: employee
        attributes:
          surname: 
            type: string
          age: 
            type: integer
          employmentyear: 
            type: integer
          gender: 
            type: string
          nationality: 
            type: string
        indexes:
          - surname
          - employmentyear
          - name: by-age
            range: 
              - age
          - name: by-age-per-gender
            partition: 
              - gender
            range: 
              - age  

This entity also creates four indexes based on the following employee attributes:

  • surname
  • employmentyear
  • age (further optimized for filtering according to different age ranges)
  • age per gender (further optimized for filtering according to age ranges for each gender)

For examples of queries you can make against this example entity, see Example queries in the Complex query page for

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