Strapi

# MISSION: Scaffold "Strapi" Production Architecture
You are an expert Senior Staff Software Architect and Full-Stack Engineer. Your mission is to scaffold and implement a production-grade, highly reliable, and modular codebase following the proven architecture of **Strapi**.
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## 1. PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS & BENCHMARK
- **Reference Architecture**: Strapi
- **What It Does**: Strapi is an open-source headless CMS built with TypeScript, Node.js, and React, providing auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs.
- **Domain & Category**: Headless CMS
- **Production Scale**: 20+ people
- **Development Mode**: CLASSIC
- **Architectural Rationale**: Declarative content modeling paired with a customizable React admin dashboard gives engineering teams full control over content structures and delivery APIs.
- **Live Website Reference**: https://strapi.io
- **Source Repository**: https://github.com/strapi/strapi
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## 2. PRODUCTION TECH STACK
- **Full Stack Array**: Node.js, TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL, SQLite, GraphQL, MySQL, Koa
- **Primary Language(s)**: TypeScript, JavaScript, Handlebars
- **License of the reference repo**: NOASSERTION
- **Frontend**: React — Powers the administrative dashboard, content-type builder, and media asset manager.; TypeScript — Strict typing across admin panels, plugin extension points, and content schemas.
- **Backend & APIs**: Node.js — Server runtime targeting Node.js 20 or newer across monorepo core services.; Koa — Lightweight HTTP framework underlying middleware stacks, routing, and controller execution.; GraphQL — Generates GraphQL schemas and query/mutation resolvers from content models via plugin.
- **Data & persistence**: PostgreSQL — Primary enterprise relational database for content persistence, relations, and RBAC tables.; SQLite — Default embedded database for rapid local development and testing without external servers.; MySQL — Supported relational database target tested in continuous integration Docker compose suites.
- **Infrastructure & deploy**: Docker — Docker Compose orchestration environments in docker-compose.dev.yml for multi-database tests.
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## 3. KEY ARCHITECTURAL DECISIONS (audited from https://github.com/strapi/strapi @ 3cd7dba)
1. **Modular plugin architecture with dynamic schema composition**: Strapi organizes core capabilities into pluggable modules (packages/plugins/). Plugins can register new database models, extend GraphQL schemas, inject admin UI navigation tabs, and hook into controller lifecycle events.
2. **Database abstraction via Knex query builder layer**: The custom database layer (packages/core/database) uses Knex to generate database-agnostic SQL queries, allowing seamless operation across PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and SQLite without rewriting business logic.
3. **Declarative Content-Type Schema Builder**: Content models are defined as declarative JSON schemas (schema.json) describing fields, validations, and relational associations, allowing developers to version-control content structures in Git.
4. **Dual REST and GraphQL API generation**: Defining a content model automatically synthesizes fully typed REST endpoints with filtering, sorting, and pagination, while the optional GraphQL plugin provides corresponding GraphQL queries and mutations.
5. **Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) enforced across API and admin boundaries**: Strapi implements fine-grained permission evaluation, separating admin console roles (Super Admin, Editor, Author) from public and authenticated API consumer roles.
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## 4. NON-NEGOTIABLE ARCHITECTURAL GUARDRAILS
1. **Monorepo & Modular Separation**:
   - Structure as a Turborepo monorepo with strict package boundaries:
     - `apps/web`: Application UI, routing, layouts, and server endpoints.
     - `packages/ui`: Shared design tokens, CSS variables, and Radix UI primitive components.
     - `packages/db`: Database schemas, client singleton, declarative migrations, and seed scripts.
     - `packages/config`: Shared TypeScript, ESLint, and build configurations.
2. **Strict Type Safety & Zero `any` Policy**:
   - Enable `strict: true`, `noImplicitAny: true`, and `strictNullChecks: true`.
   - Validate ALL external inputs, API request bodies, and query parameters with **Zod** schemas before execution.
3. **Frontend & Rendering Guidelines**:
   - Isolate interactive UI state to leaf components. Keep core pages lightweight and performant.
4. **Design System & Aesthetics**:
   - Keep every color, radius, shadow and font in a single token file (CSS variables) and consume tokens everywhere; never hardcode hex values in components.
   - Prefer crisp 1px borders and one subtle shadow scale over blurry default shadows. Pair one sans-serif for body/headings with one monospace for tags, badges, metrics, and code.
5. **Data Layer & Reliability**:
   - Write declarative schema definitions with foreign keys, composite indexes on queried filters, and automated timestamp triggers.
   - Use connection pooling and prepared statements for serverless database execution.
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## 5. STEP-BY-STEP SCAFFOLDING ROADMAP
- **Phase 1: Workspace & Root Config**: Initialize package manager, monorepo configuration (`turbo.json`, `tsconfig.base.json`, `package.json`).
- **Phase 2: Database Schema & Client**: Set up the data layer (PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL): client, connection pool, models, and migration scripts.
- **Phase 3: Design Tokens & UI Primitives**: Build accessible `Button`, `Input`, `Card`, `Badge`, and layout wrappers inside `packages/ui`.
- **Phase 4: Core Application Routes & Handlers**: Implement primary authentication, user session handling, and application routes.
- **Phase 5: Quality Assurance & Build Verification**: Run `tsc --noEmit`, ESLint, Prettier, and smoke test suites to ensure zero compilation or runtime errors.
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## 6. EXECUTION INSTRUCTIONS
1. Review all specifications, architectural guardrails, and stack choices above.
2. Present the full monorepo directory tree structure.
3. Systematically generate the complete, production-ready codebase according to the 5-phase roadmap above — starting with the root workspace setup, followed by the database schema, UI design system package, and full-stack application routes until the repository is fully scaffolded and ready to run.