View Source Quick start

Start your first project

Nova is a lightweight and modern web framework for the BEAM VM, with full support for Erlang, Elixir, and LFE. It’s designed to help you build scalable, maintainable web applications with minimal setup. Whether you're new to BEAM languages or an experienced developer, Nova gives you a clean foundation to start building right away.

Erlang approach

Important

If you require help installing Erlang and/or rebar3 please check https://adoptingerlang.org/docs/development/setup/

Automated installation

Via Curl

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/novaframework/rebar3_nova/master/install.sh)"

Via wget

sh -c "$(wget -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/novaframework/rebar3_nova/master/install.sh)"

Manual installation

Open your rebar.config file that should reside in ~/.config/rebar3/rebar.config*. If the file does not exist you can just create it. Locate the plugins section of the file and include the nova plugin. The result should look something like the following:

{plugins,[{rebar3_nova,{git,"https://github.com/novaframework/rebar3_nova.git",
                            {branch,"master"}}}]}.

Creating the skeleton

After the installation of the Nova-plugin is done use rebar3 to generate a new project.

rebar3 new nova my_first_nova

$ rebar3 new nova my_first_app
===> Writing my_first_nova/config/dev_sys.config.src
===> Writing my_first_nova/config/prod_sys.config.src
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/my_first_nova.app.src
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/my_first_nova_app.erl
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/my_first_nova_sup.erl
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/my_first_nova_router.erl
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/controllers/my_first_nova_main_controller.erl
===> Writing my_first_nova/rebar.config
===> Writing my_first_nova/config/vm.args.src
===> Writing my_first_nova/src/views/my_first_nova_main.dtl

Now the skeleton have been created and you should be able to start it. Go into the newly created directory and run the serve command.

Important!

For the auto-compile/reload to work you need inotify to be installed.

$ cd my_first_app
$ rebar3 nova serve
===> Verifying dependencies...
===> Compiling my_first_app
Erlang/OTP 20 [erts-9.3] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:0] [hipe] [kernel-poll:false]
...
a lot of progress-reports
...
===> Booted my_first_app
...

If you take a look at http://localhost:8080 you should be greeted by a Nova-page.

Elixir approach

Install mix task

In order to install Novas mix task, just run;

mix archive.install hex nova_new

Once installed you will have the option to create a new Nova project using

mix nova.new my_app

Now you can run

cd my_app
mix deps.get
iex -S mix

If you take a look at http://localhost:8080 you should be greeted by a Nova-page.