description: The same Karni project built from the terminal without an agent: the karni commands that replace boilerplate and the domain code you write yourself.¶

Building without an AI agent¶

Karni is a framework you drive from a terminal, like Django or Laravel. Every repeated piece of a web app is a command, so a project is a sequence of karni calls plus the domain code only you can write. This is the same project as Building with an AI agent, by hand.

The commands¶

Need	Command
A project	`karni new "Ticket Shop"`
A Django app	`karni make app events`
A model (+ viewset, pages, test)	`karni make model Event title:str:200 … -a --access owned:organizer`
An API resource for an existing model	`karni make viewset Event --access public-read --search title`
A migration	`karni make migration --app events` then `karni migrate`
A frontend page	`karni make page events --resource events`, `--kind detail`, `--kind form`, `--kind login`
A component	`karni make component StatusBadge`
A background task	`karni make task send_digest --retry 3`
A schedule	`karni make schedule nightly_report --every 1d --task events.tasks.send_digest`
An event and a listener	`karni make event order_shipped`, `karni make listener notify --on Event.created --queued`
A management command	`karni make command send_reminders`
A service (the only place for HTTP clients)	`karni make service stripe_client`
Middleware	`karni make middleware RequestTiming`
A test, factory or seeder	`karni make test Event`, `karni make factory Event`, `karni make seeder Event`
An optional module	`karni add payments`
A reusable module of your own	`karni make module live-chat`

Runners: karni serve (--local for a host run), karni migrate, karni test, karni shell, karni routes, karni worker, karni beat, karni schedule list|run, karni seed, karni createsuperuser, karni manage <any django command>. All of them run through the project's .venv or its docker compose stack, whichever exists.

Every command has --help and --dry-run (generators print the diff and write nothing). The full reference is The karni command.

A project, by hand¶

pip install karni karni-cli
karni new "Ticket Shop" && cd ticket_shop
cp .env.example .env            # DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///data/db.sqlite3 for a no-Docker start
karni make app events
karni make model Venue name:str:200 city:str:100 capacity:int --with viewset,test --access public-read
karni make model Event title:str:200 description:text starts_at:datetime ends_at:datetime \
    "status:choice:draft|published" organizer:fk:User venue:fk:Venue -a --access owned:organizer
karni make migration --app events && karni migrate
karni seed
karni test
karni serve --local             # http://127.0.0.1:8000, /admin, /api/docs
(cd frontend && npm install && npm run dev)   # http://localhost:5173

What you wrote: nothing yet. What you have: two models, two routed API resources with filtering, search and pagination, admin pages, list/detail/form screens, seed data and a test file per resource.

Where your code goes¶

Kind of code	Where	Example
Fields and invariants	`events/models.py`	`Booking.clean()` for a capacity rule
Who may read and write	the `access` on the viewset	`Access(read=Public(), write=Owned("organizer"))`
Custom API operations	`@action` methods on the viewset	a `pay` action calling a service
Reactions to data changes	`events/listeners.py`	`@on_updated(Booking, queued=True)`
Periodic work	`events/schedules.py`	`every("1d", send_digest)`
External services	`events/services/`	the only place for HTTP clients
Screens	`frontend/src/pages/`	compose `ResourceTable`, `ResourceForm`, `ResourceDetail`
Demo data	`events/seeds.py`	field overrides and `seed()`
Tests	`events/tests/`	`assert_crud`, `assert_isolated`, plus your flows

The architecture rules (karni rules) say where things go; karni rules --check <file> says when something is in the wrong place, and karni check runs all of it before a commit.

Reading an error¶

Every error Karni raises starts with a code and ends with a link:

E104: EventViewSet: Owned('organiser') does not lead from Event to the user model
(Event has no field 'organiser'). Name a relation path ending at the user, e.g.
Owned("organizer") or Owned("event__organizer"). See …/errors/#e104

karni explain E104 prints the same entry in the terminal, with why Karni objects and the general fix. Error codes lists them all.

Upgrading¶

Karni is a dependency. pip install -U karni karni-cli then karni upgrade --dry-run shows every change between your version and the new one as a diff; karni upgrade applies the mechanical ones and lists the rest with a link to its migration note. See the stability promise.