Encore Has a Free API: The Backend Framework That Generates Infrastructure

What if your backend framework could look at your code and automatically provision databases, pub/sub, cron jobs, and API gateways?

What Is Encore?

Encore is a backend framework (Go and TypeScript) that uses static analysis to understand your app's infrastructure needs and automatically provisions everything — locally, in CI, and in production.

// TypeScript version
import { api } from "encore.dev/api"
import { SQLDatabase } from "encore.dev/storage/sqldb"

const db = new SQLDatabase("users", { migrations: "./migrations" })

export const getUser = api(
  { method: "GET", path: "/users/:id", expose: true },
  async ({ id }: { id: string }) => {
    const user = await db.queryRow\`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = \${id}\`
    return user
  }
)

Run encore run and Encore:

1. Sees you defined a SQL database → provisions PostgreSQL locally
2. Sees you defined an API → generates API gateway + docs
3. Sees the dependency graph → creates architecture diagram

Go Version

package user

import "encore.dev/storage/sqldb"

var db = sqldb.NewDatabase("users", sqldb.DatabaseConfig{
    Migrations: "./migrations",
})

//encore:api public method=GET path=/users/:id
func GetUser(ctx context.Context, id string) (*User, error) {
    var user User
    err := db.QueryRow(ctx, "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $1", id).Scan(&user)
    return &user, err
}

Infrastructure From Code

// Pub/Sub — Encore creates the topic and subscription
import { Topic, Subscription } from "encore.dev/pubsub"

const signups = new Topic<SignupEvent>("signups")

// This creates a subscription automatically
const _ = new Subscription(signups, "send-welcome-email", {
  handler: async (event) => {
    await sendWelcomeEmail(event.email)
  }
})

// Cron jobs
import { CronJob } from "encore.dev/cron"
const _ = new CronJob("cleanup", { every: "1h", endpoint: cleanup })

// Caching
import { CacheCluster, CacheKeyspace } from "encore.dev/storage/cache"
const cluster = new CacheCluster("main")
const userCache = new CacheKeyspace<User>(cluster, { keyPattern: "user/:id" })

You don't write Terraform. You don't configure Kubernetes. Encore reads your code and provisions the right infrastructure.

Auto-Generated Docs

encore run gives you:

• Interactive API docs at localhost:9400
• Architecture diagram showing all services and their dependencies
• Distributed tracing for every request

Why Encore

• No boilerplate — no Docker, Terraform, K8s manifests
• Type-safe APIs — request/response types enforced
• Local dev = production — same infrastructure, same behavior
• Deploy anywhere — Encore Cloud or self-host on AWS/GCP

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Building backend systems? Check out my developer tools or email [e-mail].