CapabilityData & PersistenceNode.js, read from its artifacts

Data modelling

Defining the shape of the data before anything serves it — entities and types, aspects that carry cross-cutting concerns, associations and compositions, and the projections a service exposes. The question every CAP project answers first, and the one the rest of the corpus assumes has been answered.

Showing artifacts, examples and content with confirmed Node.js applicability. View All CAP

Overview

SAP SHIPS

@sap/cds-common-content

@sap/cds-compiler

Compiles CDL to CSN, and CSN to the DDL of the configured database dialect, EDMX and the hdbtable and hdbview artifacts; cds deploy --dry prints the DDL without executing it.

SourceCDL Compilation to Database-Specific DDLs — capirechecked 2026-09-27

@sap/cds

Compiles CDL from files or in-memory sources to CSN with cds.compile, and every generic handler reads the model through that CSN at runtime.

SourceParsing and Compiling Models — capirechecked 2026-09-27

A Node.js coverage assessment has not been written. View all flavors

THE COMMUNITY ADDS

cds-numberrange-plugin

cap-user-info

Ships a reusable aspect and entity for user details: UserTracked extends managed, and UserInfo holds the record that createdBy and modifiedBy resolve to through the two associations _toCreatedUserInfo and _toModifiedUserInfo.

Sourcecap-user-info 0.1.9 — README, how it workschecked 2026-09-19

A Node.js coverage assessment has not been written. View all flavors

Artifacts5

5 of 5 artifacts

ArtifactSignals

Build tools1

@sap/cds-compilerCompiler from CDS models to CSN, EDMX and database schemas

Signals

none

CDS plugins2

cap-user-infoUser details and quickview links for createdBy and modifiedBy

Signals

none

cds-numberrange-pluginFills a CDS element from a database-backed number range

Signals

none

Packages2

@sap/cdsCAP Node.js runtime

Signals

none

@sap/cds-common-contentISO content for CAP's countries, languages, currencies and timezones

Signals

none

Content1

Group by

Data modelling1

A CAP Plugin for Flexible Number Range Management: cds-numberrange-plugin

SAP Community, abdulbasit, BlogThe reasoningRunnable code

cds-numberrange-plugin1

A CAP Plugin for Flexible Number Range Management: cds-numberrange-plugin

SAP Community, abdulbasit, BlogThe reasoningRunnable code

Seen working2

ArtifactSignals

Samples2

SAP-samples/cap-cds-hands-onFive-part workshop on CDS, from a first service to constraints

none

SAP-samples/cloud-cap-hana-swapiCAP data model of many-to-many relationships on a Star Wars dataset

none

Details

What changed — and what it makes stale3

@sap/cds 9.9.02026-04-23, CAP, Node.js

Declarative constraints (@assert) moved from Gamma to General Availability, and a bug in error reporting was fixed alongside it: every violation used to return the generic error code ASSERT regardless of which constraint failed; now the code returned is the one named in the constraint itself.

Makes stale:

Error-handling code or tests written against declarative constraints before April 2026 that match on a literal 'ASSERT' error code — they now see the constraint's own code instead.

SourceCAP release notes, April 2026 — Declarative Constraints reach GAchecked 2026-09-08

@sap/cds 9.6.02025-12-16, CAP, Node.js

The compiler gained a declarative validation annotation, at Gamma status. Before it, a check like 'reject if this field is missing or out of range' meant a custom before-handler in application code; after it, @assert: (<CXL expression>) on an element states the condition in the model itself and the runtime validates it on write.

Makes stale:

Advice that any conditional validation beyond @mandatory or @assert.range needs a handwritten handler. Since December 2025 a CXL expression in @assert covers much of that ground, model-side.

SourceCAP release notes, December 2025 — Declarative Constraintschecked 2026-09-08

@sap/cds 8.0.32024-07-12, CAP, Node.js

cds.compile.to.hana generates the hdbtable and hdbview artifacts and replaces cds.compile.to.hdbtable. Dated from the first 8.0 release published on npm.

Makes stale:

Build scripts and posts that call cds.compile.to.hdbtable.

SourceParsing and Compiling Models — capirechecked 2026-09-27

Coverage

statecore and community, CAP, Node.js, derived

domainData & Persistence

also inABAP

For your agent

Ref: capability:data-modelling
JSON: /capabilities/data-modelling.json
MCP: Connecting an agent