Quickstart

Run a fresh Postgres and Electric using Docker Compose.

Download and run this docker-compose.yaml file:

curl -O https://electric-sql.com/docker-compose.yaml
docker compose up

Create a table and insert some data

psql "postgresql://postgres:password@localhost:54321/electric"

CREATE TABLE foo (
  id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  name VARCHAR(255),
  value FLOAT
);

INSERT INTO foo (name, value) VALUES
  ('Alice', 3.14),
  ('Bob', 2.71);

Using the HTTP API

Use curl to request a Shape containing all rows in the foo table:

curl -i 'http://localhost:3000/v1/shape?table=foo&offset=-1'

Using the React client library

Run the following to create a standard React app:

npm create --yes vite@latest react-app -- --template react-ts

Change into the react-app subfolder and install the @electric-sql/react package:

cd react-app
npm install @electric-sql/react

Replace the contents of src/App.tsx with the following. Note that we're requesting the same shape as before:

import { useShape } from '@electric-sql/react'

function Component() {
  const { data } = useShape({
    url: `http://localhost:3000/v1/shape`,
    params: {
      table: `foo`
    }
  })

  return (
    <pre>{ JSON.stringify(data, null, 2) }</pre>
  )
}

export default Component

Run the dev server:

npm run dev

Congratulations! You've built your first real-time, reactive Electric app!