Step 2: Model and migration

This step makes the posts table with a Dart migration and a Post model for it.

1. Make the model and the migration

dox create:model Post -m

This makes two files and updates one:

File	What it is
`lib/app/models/post/post.model.dart`	the model (new)
`db/migration/<date>_create_posts_table.dart`	the migration (new)
`db/migration/migrations.dart`	the list of all Dart migrations. Dox writes it. Do not edit it.

The template already has bin/migrate.dart. The dox migration:* commands run it.

The numbers in the migration file name are the date and time when you ran the command.

2. Add the columns to the migration

Open the new file in db/migration. Add title and body:

db/migration/2026_10_22_205345_create_posts_table.dart

// ignore_for_file: file_names
import 'package:dox_migration/dox_migration.dart';

class CreatePostsTable extends Migration {
  @override
  Future<void> up(Schema schema) async {
    await schema.create('posts', (Table table) {
      table.id();
      table.string('title');
      table.text('body');
      table.timestamps();
    });
  }

  @override
  Future<void> down(Schema schema) async {
    await schema.dropIfExists('posts');
  }
}

table.id() makes an auto increment primary key on every database.
table.timestamps() makes created_at and updated_at. The model fills them.

3. Add the fields to the model

lib/app/models/post/post.model.dart

import 'package:dox_orm/dox_orm.dart';

part 'post.model.g.dart';

@DoxModel(table: 'posts')
class Post extends PostGenerator {
  @override
  List<String> get hidden => <String>[];

  @Column()
  String? title;

  @Column()
  String? body;
}

Every column field is nullable. A new Post() has no values yet. id, createdAt and updatedAt come from PostGenerator. You do not declare them.

4. Run the migrations on server start

There is nothing to change here. The template's bin/server.dart already runs the list from db/migration/migrations.dart before the server starts:

bin/server.dart

import '../db/migration/migrations.dart';

void main() async {
  Dox().initialize(appConfig);

  await Migrator(
    migrations: migrations,
    connection: await databaseConfig
        .getConnectionConfig()
        .getDatabaseConnection(),
  ).migrate();

  await Dox().startServer();
}

So the server runs new migrations each time it starts. This also works in the native binary of step 7.

5. Run the migration and the generator

dox migration:run

Migrating: 2026_10_22_205345_create_posts_table
Migrated: 2026_10_22_205345_create_posts_table

The model needs its generated file post.model.g.dart. dox s makes it while it runs. If dox s is not running, run the generator once:

dart run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs

Check it

dox migration:status

Migration                             Batch  Status
2026_10_22_205345_create_posts_table  1      Ran