Modules

Serverpod is built around the concept of modules. A Serverpod module is similar to a Dart package but contains both server, client, and Flutter code. A module contains its own namespace for endpoints and methods to minimize the risk of conflicts.

Examples of modules are the serverpod_auth module and the serverpod_chat module, which both are maintained by the Serverpod team.

Adding a module to your project

Server setup

To add a module to your project, you must include the server and client/Flutter packages in your project's pubspec.yaml files.

For example, to add the serverpod_auth module to your project, you need to add serverpod_auth_server to your server's pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  serverpod_auth_server: ^1.x.x

info

Make sure to replace 1.x.x with the Serverpod version you are using. Serverpod uses the same version number for all official packages. If you use the same version, you will be sure that everything works together.

In your config/generator.yaml you can optionally add the serverpod_auth module and give it a nickname. The nickname will determine how you reference the module from the client. If the module isn't added in the generator.yaml, the default nickname for the module will be used.

modules:
  serverpod_auth:
    nickname: auth

Then run pub get and serverpod generate from your server's directory (e.g., mypod_server) to add the module to your project's deserializer.

$ dart pub get
$ serverpod generate

Finally, since modules might include modifications to the database schema, you should create a new database migration and apply it by running serverpod create-migration then dart bin/main.dart --apply-migrations from your server's directory.

$ serverpod create-migration
$ dart bin/main.dart --apply-migrations

Client setup

In your client's pubspec.yaml, you will need to add the generated client code from the module.

dependencies:
  serverpod_auth_client: ^1.x.x

Flutter app setup

In your Flutter app, add the corresponding dart or Flutter package(s) to your pubspec.yaml.

dependencies:
  serverpod_auth_shared_flutter: ^1.x.x
  serverpod_auth_google_flutter: ^1.x.x
  serverpod_auth_apple_flutter: ^1.x.x

Referencing a module

It can be useful to reference serializable objects in other modules from the YAML-files in your models. You do this by adding the module prefix, followed by the nickname of the package. For instance, this is how you reference a serializable class in the auth package.

class: MyClass
fields:
  userInfo: module:auth:UserInfo

Creating custom modules

With the serverpod create command, it is possible to create new modules for code that is shared between projects or that you want to publish to pub.dev. To create a module instead of a server project, pass module to the --template flag.

$ serverpod create --template module my_module

The create command will create a server and a client Dart package. If you also want to add custom Flutter code, use flutter create to create a package.

$ flutter create --template package my_module_flutter

In your Flutter package, you most likely want to import the client libraries created by serverpod create.

info

Most modules will need a set of database tables to function. When naming the tables, you should use the module name as a prefix to the table name to avoid any conflicts. For instance, the Serverpod tables are prefixed with serverpod_.