Examples

NocoDB Dev — Worked Examples

Practical end-to-end scenarios. Each example follows the discover → plan → apply → verify loop using MCP for discovery/verification and CLI/API for writes.

Quick Examples

Create a table from scratch

nc table:create $BASE_ID '{
  "title": "Tasks",
  "fields": [
    { "title": "Title",     "type": "SingleLineText" },
    { "title": "Status",    "type": "SingleSelect",
      "colOptions": { "options":[
        {"title":"Todo"},{"title":"Doing"},{"title":"Done"}
      ]}},
    { "title": "Due",       "type": "Date" },
    { "title": "Notes",     "type": "LongText" }
  ]
}'

Add a field to an existing table

nc field:create $BASE_ID $TASKS_TABLE_ID '{"title":"Priority","type":"Rating","max":3}'

Rename a field

nc field:update $BASE_ID $TASKS_TABLE_ID $COLUMN_ID '{"title":"Stars"}'

Build a Kanban view

nc view:create:kanban $BASE_ID $TASKS_TABLE_ID '{
  "title": "Board",
  "fk_grp_col_id": "<statusColumnId>"
}'

Add a Formula

nc field:create $BASE_ID $TASKS_TABLE_ID '{
  "title": "Days Until Due",
  "type": "Formula",
  "formula": "DATETIME_DIFF({Due}, NOW(), \"days\")"
}'

Wire a Slack webhook on insert

nc hook:create $BASE_ID $TASKS_TABLE_ID '{
  "title": "Slack on new task",
  "event": "after",
  "operation": "insert",
  "notification": {
    "type": "Messaging",
    "payload": {
      "channel": "Slack",
      "webhook_url": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T0/B0/XXX",
      "body": ":pencil: New task: {{record.Title}}"
    }
  },
  "active": true,
  "version": "v3"
}'

Full Scenario Walkthroughs

See references/scenarios/:

• crm-schema-buildout.md — Build a CRM from zero: Customers, Orders (with link to Customers), Products (m2m to Orders), plus Lookup of customer name on Order and Rollup of order totals on Customer.
• ecommerce-relations.md — E-commerce schema with many-to-many Products↔Orders, Lookup customer name onto Order line items, computed Order Total formula.

Tips

• Always getTableSchema after every write. Schema responses are your audit trail.
• Build relations bottom-up. Create the "many" tables (Orders) before the "one" tables (Customers) only if the link is bt. For hm and mm, either order works.
• Lookups need links first. Don't try to PATCH a Lookup config to point at a not-yet-existing link — NocoDB rejects with 400.
• System fields are write-once. CreatedTime etc. populate themselves; don't try to seed them from imports.
• Webhook conditions match field titles, case-sensitive. Mistyped column references render literally instead of erroring.