Building Applications with OpsDB Application Architecture

OpsDB is a governed data substrate that unifies schema-driven validation, five-layer authorization, versioned state, change management with approval routing, append-only audit logging, structured search, and bounded automation into a single ten-step gate pipeline. Built in Go on Postgres and released under the MIT license, the compiled infrastructure contains zero application-domain types — all domain knowledge lives in YAML schema files and data rows interpreted by fixed mechanisms. An application built on OpsDB is called an AppDB. The developer writes schema YAML declaring entities, fields, types, constraints, and relationships. Running the schema loader produces a complete backend with validated writes, access control, version history, change management, audit trail, and search — without writing endpoint handlers, validation code, authorization logic, or audit infrastructure. Backend logic is expressed as runners — small programs following a three-phase read-act-write pattern through a shared library suite that handles all infrastructure concerns. A closed constraint vocabulary of nine types, three modifiers, six constraints, sixteen operations, and ten gate steps means security derives from structural limitation and the marginal cost of new application behavior approaches zero. This paper enumerates 47 construction methods for building applications on OpsDB, covering domain analysis, schema design, policy configuration, runner implementation, frontend integration, and AI-assisted development. The methods apply across a spectrum from personal data platforms to enterprise backends under regulatory oversight, composing according to architecture position: primary backend for governed-state-dominant applications, split backend alongside specialized hot-path systems, or operational wrapper managing configuration and compliance around processing-dominant systems.