Core Platform
The shared records and services every erxes plugin builds on: organizations and permissions, contacts, products, custom fields and segments, forms and documents, automations, broadcasts, email delivery, and bulk import/export.
Core API (backend/core-api, port 3300) is the always-on service behind the core subgraph. It registers with the gateway the same way a plugin API does, through its own bootstrap in src/main.ts, but holds the platform's shared data model: the collections plugins link to rather than duplicate. Everything in this section is a core-api module or a shared pipeline it runs; plugin APIs reach them through shared service interfaces, never by reading core's collections directly.
How plugins use core
- tRPC. init-trpc.ts merges each module's router into the core
appRouter, served at/trpc. A plugin builds a typed client throughgetPlugin('core'); the generator writes one intosrc/trpc/trpcClients.ts. It calls procedures such asusers.findOneorcustomers.count. metahooks. Themetaobject a plugin passes tostartPlugin(permissions,automations,segments,notifications,importExport,afterProcess,references) is serialized into the Redis keyerxesservice:config:<name>and read back by core-api, the gateway, and the background services. That is how a plugin adds permission actions, automation triggers and actions, segment types, notification types, and import/export handlers without touching core code. See Plugin Metadata & Extensions for the fullmetaregistration.- Shared interfaces.
erxes-api-shared/core-modulesholds the domain interfaces and producer helpers (automations,segments,permissions,properties,forms,import-export, and more) that both core and plugins compile against.
Module map
Each guide covers one area's data model, GraphQL API, permissions, and extension hooks.
| Area | core-api location | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Team members, structure, brands, RBAC | modules/organization, modules/permissions, modules/auth | Organizations, Users & Permissions |
| Customers and companies | modules/contacts | Contacts |
| Catalog, categories, units of measure | modules/products | Products |
| Custom fields, tags, dynamic audiences | modules/properties, modules/tags, modules/segments | Properties, Tags & Segments |
| Document templates with placeholders | modules/documents (modules/forms is a legacy shell; the working forms module is in frontline_api. See Forms & Surveys) | Documents |
| Workflow engine and approval locks | modules/automations, modules/approval, plus the services/automations worker (see Background Services) | Automations & Approvals |
| Campaigns and in-app/email notifications | modules/broadcast, modules/notifications | Broadcasts & Notifications |
| Outbound transports and inbound mail | src/utils/email and erxes-api-shared/src/utils/email; inbound via cloudflare/mail-worker into frontline_api | Email Delivery |
| Bulk CSV load and extraction | modules/import-export | Import & Export |
Core API also contains modules without a dedicated page: clientportal (portal records and portal-user auth, see Client Portal), apps (machine tokens), conformities and relations (record linking), internalNote, search, template, and logs.
