Stacks & DNA DARE

DARE generates greenfield projects from a catalog of 11 stacks — 7 backend and 4 MCP servers. Each generator (StackScaffold) is registered lazily in the registry (packages/cli/src/stacks/registry.ts): the module is only loaded when you choose that stack, keeping dare --help cold and fast.

Regardless of the stack, every generator delivers the same invariant set of 7 artifacts — the DNA DARE — validated in a test (dna.spec.ts).

The 11 stacks

Backend (7)

Stack	Status	Framework	Main libs
ruby-rails-8	stable	Rails 8	rswag (OpenAPI), Action Cable (WS), RFC 7807 Problem Details, ActiveRecord, rake dare:metrics
node-nestjs	stable	NestJS 10	Prisma + Postgres, JWT auth, Swagger at /openapi.json, Throttler (rate limit), class-validator + class-transformer, Pino
python-fastapi	stable	FastAPI	Pydantic v2, SQLAlchemy 2.0 + Alembic, slowapi (rate limit), uvicorn[standard]
php-laravel	stable	Laravel 11	Sanctum + FormRequest, Eloquent, Reverb (WS) + Pail, ThrottleRequests, l5-swagger, LlmProvider (Dummy + OpenAI), Pest
rust-axum	stable	Axum 0.7	Tokio, tower-http (CORS/trace) + tower-governor (rate limit), utoipa (OpenAPI), sqlx + Postgres, axum::extract::ws
go-gin	stable	Gin	sqlc + pgx, golang-jwt + bcrypt, gorilla/websocket, golang.org/x/time/rate, swag (OpenAPI)
go-stdlib	stable	net/http 1.22 ServeMux	pgx + sqlc-compatible schema, golang-jwt + bcrypt, golang.org/x/time/rate, github.com/coder/websocket (minimal-deps philosophy)

MCP — Model Context Protocol (4)

Stack	Status	SDK / Runtime	Transports
mcp-node-ts	stable	@modelcontextprotocol/sdk (TypeScript)	stdio · sse · http (Streamable HTTP)
mcp-python	stable	mcp[cli] (FastMCP, Python 3.11+)	stdio · sse · http (via uvicorn)
mcp-rust	beta	rmcp (official Rust SDK)	stdio · sse · http (via axum)
mcp-go	beta	github.com/mark3labs/mcp-go (community SDK)	stdio · sse · http

MCP transport

All three transports come together in every MCP generator. The effective transport is chosen at runtime by the --transport flag or the MCP_TRANSPORT env; the generator pre-selects the user's default (opts.mcp.transport) so that start "just works".

Registry ordering

list() sorts by category (backend before mcp) and then by id, deterministically. resolve(id) does the lazy import and memoizes it; an invalid id raises UnknownStackError with the list of available ids.

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The DNA DARE — 7 invariant artifacts

Every StackScaffold calls emitDefaults() early in generate() to satisfy the DNA contract and then overrides each artifact with the stack-specific version. The DareDnaArtifact type and the DARE_DNA constant (in stacks/types.ts) list the 7; the dna.spec.ts test fails if any is missing.

#	Artifact (DareDnaArtifact)	What it is	How it is guaranteed
1	Layered Design	Separation into layers (handlers/controllers → services → repositories → models)	Structure emitted by each generator (common to all 11 stacks).
2	llms.txt	Manifest for AI agents (setup, commands, endpoints)	emit('llms-txt') → llms.txt.
3	OpenAPI	HTTP contract (openapi.json / /openapi.json at runtime)	emit('openapi') → openapi.json (3.1.0 skeleton; generator overrides).
4	--json	JSON output flag in the generated CLI	Declarative: the generator declares it via dnaEmitted; validated by a structural grep over the generated source.
5	Rate limit	Per-minute limit middleware, driven by env (RATE_LIMIT_PER_MIN)	Declarative: same as --json; validated by grep.
6	.env.example without secrets	Environment example without real credentials	emit('env-example') validates each value against SECRET_PATTERNS (base64 ≥40, hex ≥32, PEM, sk-…, AKIA…) and throws EnvSecretError if it matches.
7	.dare/skills.yml	Registry of the stack skill for the IDE	emit('skills-yml') maps stack → skill (e.g.: skill-nestjs-api, skill-fastapi-api; all MCP → skill-mcp-server).
—	.github/workflows/dare-ci.yml	CI (audit + lint + test)	emit('github-ci') → workflow with audit/lint/test jobs (per-ecosystem placeholders).

Declarative vs. emitted

Five artifacts are emitted to disk (llms-txt, openapi, env-example, skills-yml, github-ci). Two — cli-json-flag (the --json flag) and rate-limit — are declarative: the generator returns that it satisfied them in dnaEmitted, and dna.spec.ts confirms via grep over the generated code. emitDefaults() returns the complete DARE_DNA set (all 7).

Secret protection in .env.example

validateEnvExample() walks the file line by line, ignores comments/empty lines, and rejects any value that matches a secret pattern:

export const SECRET_PATTERNS: ReadonlyArray<RegExp> = [
  /[A-Za-z0-9+/]{40,}={0,2}/,            // base64 ≥40 chars (provável chave)
  /[a-f0-9]{32,}/,                       // hex ≥32 chars (hash / chave)
  /-----BEGIN [A-Z ]+ PRIVATE KEY-----/, // bloco PEM
  /sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{40,}/,                 // chave estilo OpenAI
  /AKIA[0-9A-Z]{16}/,                    // AWS access key
];

Placeholder values (replace-me-in-prod, postgresql://user:pass@localhost...) pass; real secrets make the build fail with EnvSecretError pointing to the line.

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Toolchain (auto / native / docker)

Every generator receives a ScaffoldOpts.toolchain of type ToolchainMode:

Mode	Behavior
native	Uses the tools installed locally (Node, Python, Rust, Go, etc.).
docker	Packages the toolchain in a container — without depending on what is on the machine.
auto	Decides between native and docker according to the environment.

Each generate() also receives: dir (target directory, already created and empty), projectName (kebab-case slug), features (subset of DARE_DNA, default = the 7), optional llm (providers), optional realtime (ws/sse), mcp (transport — required for the mcp category) and isMonorepo. It returns ScaffoldResult: filesWritten, postInstallSteps (commands to run next), warnings and dnaEmitted (the satisfied DNA artifacts — checked by dna.spec.ts).

flowchart TD
    G[generate&#40;opts&#41;] --> E[emitDefaults&#40;&#41;<br/>7 DNA artifacts]
    E --> O[stack-specific overlay<br/>real OpenAPI, llms.txt, etc.]
    O --> R[ScaffoldResult<br/>filesWritten · postInstallSteps · dnaEmitted]
    R --> V[dna.spec.ts validates the 7]