0002: No database

• Status: accepted
• Date: 2026-10-17

Context

Most small websites run on shared hosting. A database means credentials, backups, migrations and one more thing that breaks during a move. Content in files can be read, copied, diffed and versioned with tools everyone already has.

Decision

Wake uses no database at all.

• Content is Markdown files in content/.
• Accounts, statistics, consent records and revisions are files in storage/.
• Laravel runs with the file session and cache drivers and the sync queue.
• Eloquent is replaced by file models with a similar API (Post::published()->tag('travel')->latest()->get()).
• Speed comes from a content index kept as a PHP array, which OPcache holds in memory, and from a full page cache that is served before Laravel starts.

Consequences

• Installing is uploading files. Moving is copying a folder.
• Writes must be atomic (temporary file, then rename()) and locked with flock().
• There is no queue worker, so long tasks run in small slices after responses.
• Laravel packages that need a database (Passport, database notifications) cannot be used. OAuth for the MCP server is therefore file-based.
• Very large sites (well above a million page views a month) are not the target.

Alternatives considered

• SQLite. Still a file, but a binary one: no diffs, harder to merge, and locking problems on network file systems that cheap hosts like to use.
• Optional database. Two storage paths double the testing and the bugs.