Quickstart

Why Sourcetool?

Sourcetool gives you a React‑quality UI while writing pure Go. Widgets are declarative, live‑update over WebSockets, and are fully type‑safe. That means you stay in one language and one repo, yet ship internal tools that feel indistinguishable from bespoke front‑ends.

Installation

go get github.com/trysourcetool/sourcetool-go

Prerequisites

1. Create a project and copy the API key from the Sourcetool Dashboard.
2. Go 1.24 or newer.

Hello, users page

package main

import (
    "log"
    "time"

    "github.com/trysourcetool/sourcetool-go"
    "github.com/trysourcetool/sourcetool-go/textinput"
    "github.com/trysourcetool/sourcetool-go/table"
)

type User struct {
    ID    string
    Name  string
    Email string
    Joined time.Time
}

func listUsers(filter string) ([]User, error) {
    return []User{{ID: "1", Name: "Jane", Email: "jane@example.com", Joined: time.Now()}}, nil
}

func usersPage(ui sourcetool.UIBuilder) error {
    ui.Markdown("## Users")

    name := ui.TextInput("Name", textinput.WithPlaceholder("filter by name"))

    users, err := listUsers(name)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }

    ui.Table(users,
        table.WithHeader("Users list"),
        table.WithOnSelect(table.OnSelectRerun),
    )
    return nil
}

func main() {
    st := sourcetool.New(&sourcetool.Config{ // New now takes a *Config
        APIKey:   "YOUR_API_KEY",
        Endpoint: "wss://your-sourcetool-instance",  // Your self-hosted Sourcetool endpoint
    })

    st.Page("/users", "Users", usersPage)

    if err := st.Listen(); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

What happened?

• sourcetool.New(&sourcetool.Config{…}) creates a host process and connects to the cloud endpoint.
• The usersPage function runs every time the client opens /users, or when a widget (e.g. table row) asks for a rerun.
• Widgets such as TextInput or Table persist their state in the session between reruns.

Building forms

func createUserPage(ui sourcetool.UIBuilder) error {
    formUI, submitted := ui.Form("Create", form.WithClearOnSubmit(true))

    name  := formUI.TextInput("Name",  textinput.WithRequired(true))
    email := formUI.TextInput("Email", textinput.WithRequired(true))

    role := formUI.Selectbox("Role",
        selectbox.WithOptions("Admin", "User", "Guest"),
        selectbox.WithRequired(true),
    )

    if submitted {
        _ = createUser(name, email, role.Value)
    }
    return nil
}

Component catalogue

Group	Components
Input	TextInput, TextArea, NumberInput, DateInput, DateTimeInput, TimeInput
Selection	Selectbox, MultiSelect, Radio, Checkbox, CheckboxGroup
Layout	Columns, Form, Table
Display	Markdown
Action	Button

Each widget offers With… option helpers for behaviour—see the individual reference pages.

Next steps

1. Dive into the concepts to understand sessions, reruns, and access control.
2. Browse the complete widget reference.
3. Explore examples in the main repo for advanced patterns such as auth middleware and streaming logs.

Need help? Join the community on Discord or open a GitHub discussion.