Entity Data Modeler

The Entity Data Modeler (EDM) is a diagram-driven designer for the domain model. It authors *.edm (XML) and *.model (JSON projection) artefacts. From those, the project-generation pipeline emits a complete CRUD application: tables, OData service, REST endpoints, and an Angular UI.

Files

• *.edm - XML domain model, the source of truth edited in the modeler.
• *.model - JSON projection consumed by the application templates.

Both live under /registry/public/<project>/ once published.

Authoring

• Drag entities from the palette onto the canvas.
• Add properties; pick a type, length, nullability, key flag.
• Draw relations between entities to express associations and dependencies.
• Group entities into perspectives to control how they appear in the generated UI.

Save persists the *.edm. Regenerate the *.model projection from the same file when you need the JSON shape.

Unique keys

A property's own Unique flag constrains one column. When what makes a row unique spans several - one row per (tenant, application), one price per (product, priceList, validFrom) - open the Unique keys dialog from the toolbar and declare the key there: pick the entity, tick two or more of its properties, and give the message a colliding write should be answered with.

The key is stored once for the model rather than on the entity, beside perspectives and navigation, and it names properties - so renaming a property's column follows the key automatically. The constraint name is derived as <Entity>_<Property>_<Property>, the same name an intent derives, because that name is what the generated REST controller matches against the database's error to answer 409 Conflict with your message.

The key is enforced by the database

That is the point of declaring it: the rule then holds for every writer at once - the generated UI, an import, an arriving message - and not only for the ones that go through the application. The constraint is created with the table, so a key added to an entity whose table already exists does not retrofit itself.

What it generates

The template-application-* template family consumes the model and emits:

• .table artefacts for every entity.
• An OData v2 service exposing them.
• REST endpoints for CRUD operations.
• A generated Angular UI with master / detail / form views.

See Modeling artefacts and the Workbench perspective.

Underlying library

The canvas is rendered with mxGraph.