Installation

Five minutes from zero to a project that loads Cascade. No conceptual content on this page — pure mechanics. Three steps: install the packages, install your driver, turn on decorators. If you’re done before your coffee finishes brewing, that’s the right amount of time.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ (current active LTS).
• TypeScript 7.0.2 in the project.
• A database — either MongoDB or PostgreSQL — running locally or reachable by connection string. If you don’t have one yet, install MongoDB or PostgreSQL first. Cascade works the same against either.

Cascade 5.32 updates its development esbuild dependency to the 0.28.2 line, which includes the Windows development-server fix in GHSA-g7r4-m6w7-qqqr. No model, decorator, or migration configuration changes are required for this update.

Step 1 — Install Cascade and seal

Cascade ships with @warlock.js/seal as a dependency, but you’ll import directly from seal in your schemas (v and Infer). Install both explicitly so they’re both in your package.json — stricter package managers (pnpm strict mode, Yarn PnP) need it.

npm

npm install @warlock.js/cascade @warlock.js/seal

pnpm

pnpm add @warlock.js/cascade @warlock.js/seal

yarn

yarn add @warlock.js/cascade @warlock.js/seal

bun

bun add @warlock.js/cascade @warlock.js/seal

Both packages are now in your package.json. You’ll import the ORM bits (Model, RegisterModel, relation helpers) from @warlock.js/cascade, and the schema bits (v, Infer) from @warlock.js/seal.

Step 2 — Install your database driver

Cascade speaks MongoDB and PostgreSQL through separate peer dependencies. Install the one you’re using:

For MongoDB:

npm install mongodb

For PostgreSQL:

npm install pg

That’s the entire driver story from the install side. Cascade picks it up via configuration on the next page — you don’t import it directly.

Step 3 — Turn on decorators

Cascade uses @RegisterModel() to put each model into a global registry, and @BelongsTo / @HasMany / etc. to declare relations. If decorators don’t run, the registry stays empty, decorator-based relations never hoist, and your models break at runtime with confusing errors.

So: turn decorators on. Mandatory, not optional.

Add this to your tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2022",
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "strict": true,
  },
}

Three things this does:

• experimentalDecorators makes @RegisterModel() compile.
• emitDecoratorMetadata lets Cascade read decorator-attached metadata at runtime.
• strict catches the kind of schema-vs-class drift you want to know about at compile time, not at 2am.

Recap

You’ve got:

• Cascade and seal installed
• One database driver installed (Mongo or Postgres)
• TypeScript ready for decorators

Nothing’s running yet — that’s the next page.

Next

Continue to Configuration to connect Cascade to your database.