Forge

Forge is a personal engineering catalog of reusable technologies, configurations, infrastructure, and project building blocks.

Instead of solving the same setup problems repeatedly, Forge lets you capture proven solutions and reuse them across projects.

Repository

Demo repository: https://github.com/giallon/test_forge

Philosophy

When a technology becomes stable and reusable:

1. Document it
2. Extract it into a module
3. Store it in Forge
4. Reuse it in future projects

Examples:

• PostGIS
• Redis
• PowerSync
• Rails
• Flutter
• DevContainers

Catalog Structure

catalog/
└── <category>/
  └── <module>/
    ├── service.yml
    ├── env.example
    ├── files/
    │   ├── config/
    │   └── scripts/
    └── README.md

Each module contains the files, configuration, and documentation required to reuse it.

Usage

Add a module to the current project:

forge add postgis

Remove a module from the current project:

forge remove postgis

List available modules:

forge list

This copies the module files into the project's ops/ directory.

Example:

forge add powersync

Result:

ops/
├── config/
├── env/
│   └── powersync.env.example
├── scripts/
└── services/
  └── powersync.yml

Generate a root Docker Compose file from the copied module manifests:

forge compose

This writes docker-compose.yml in the current project root.

Generate a root .env.example by combining module environment templates:

forge env

This reads ops/env/*.env.example and writes a project-level .env.example.

Optional shortcut:

forge bootstrap

This runs forge compose and forge env.

Example

Add reusable services from Forge:

forge add web
forge add postgres
forge add redis
forge add powersync
forge add pgadmin

Project structure after forge compose:

my-app/
├── docker-compose.yml
└── ops/
  ├── config/
  ├── env/
  │   ├── pgadmin.env.example
  │   ├── postgres.env.example
  │   └── redis.env.example
  ├── scripts/
  └── services/
    ├── pgadmin.yml
    ├── postgres.yml
    ├── powersync.yml
    └── redis.yml

Generated docker-compose.yml:

services:
  postgres:
    extends:
      file: ops/services/postgres.yml
      service: postgres

  redis:
    extends:
      file: ops/services/redis.yml
      service: redis

  powersync:
    extends:
      file: ops/services/powersync.yml
      service: powersync

Start the stack:

docker compose up -d

Forge provides reusable service definitions while the application remains responsible for orchestration and customization.

Goals

• Build a reusable engineering catalog
• Standardize project setup
• Capture lessons learned
• Accelerate project creation
• Reduce duplicated work

Status

Forge is currently experimental and focused on cataloging reusable infrastructure and application modules.