Open Mercato

An AI-ready modular CRM/ERP foundation framework built on TypeScript and Next.js. It offers out-of-the-box multi-tenancy, permissions, workflows, and Headless API capabilities, supports deep customization via overlay overrides, and includes built-in AI Agent (MCP) integration tools.

Project Overview#

Open Mercato is an enterprise-grade CRM and ERP foundation framework with the core philosophy of "Start with 80% done" — freeing development teams from repetitive infrastructure work to focus on the remaining 20% of differentiated innovation.

Core Value Proposition#

Buy vs. Build Balance: Achieving the optimal balance between out-of-the-box functionality and high customizability
Modular & Upgrade-Compatible: Rapid customization through Overlay mechanism without breaking upgrade paths
AI-Ready Design: Structured design for assisted workflows, automation, and conversational interfaces

Business Domain Capabilities#

Module	Key Capabilities
CRM	Infinitely flexible customer, opportunity, and workflow modeling with custom data definitions
ERP	Order/production/service delivery management with modular trimming
Commerce	CPQ process, B2B procurement portal, complete e-commerce backend
Self-service	Configurable forms and guided flows, fine-grained permission customer/partner portals
Production	Coordinated production management with modular entities and automation hooks
Workflows	Custom data lifecycle and document workflows (per tenant/team)

Platform & Architecture Capabilities#

🧩 Modular Architecture: Auto-discovery of modules, pages, APIs, entities; Overlay override mechanism
🧬 Custom Entities & Dynamic Forms: Runtime declaration of fields, validators, and UI controls
🏢 Multi-tenant by Default: Default multi-tenancy with strict organization/tenant isolation
🏛️ Multi-hierarchical Organizations: Built-in organization trees, roles, and user visibility controls
🛡️ Feature-based RBAC: Role/user-level feature flags combined with organization scope for page/API gating
⚡ Data Indexing & Caching: Hybrid JSONB indexing + intelligent caching
🔔 Event Subscribers: Domain event publishing and persistent subscription handling (local/Redis)
🌐 Headless/API Platform: Unified extensible data model with richly-typed APIs (mobile/Web)

AI Integration Capabilities#

MCP (Model Context Protocol) Tools#

discover_schema - Discover data structures
find_api - Search available APIs
call_api - Invoke backend interfaces
context_whoami - Get current context

Supports development/production integration patterns, enabling AI Agents to understand business logic and execute operations.

Data Encryption#

Tenant-level DEK (Data Encryption Key)
AES-GCM encryption
Automatic encryption/decryption in ORM lifecycle

Technical Architecture#

Frontend: Next.js App Router + React + TypeScript (92.7%)
Backend ORM: MikroORM + PostgreSQL
Dependency Injection: Awilix (request-level DI container)
Caching & Events: Redis
Search Engine: Meilisearch (full-text/vector search)
Authentication: bcryptjs + JWT Session

Project Structure#

apps/
├── mercato/     # Main Next.js application
└── docs/        # Documentation site
packages/        # @open-mercato/<pkg> naming
├── core/        # Core packages
├── shared/      # Shared utilities
├── ui/          # UI components
├── cli/         # CLI tools
├── ai-assistant/# AI assistant
└── enterprise/  # Enterprise edition

Requirements#

Node.js: 24.x
Yarn: 4+
PostgreSQL: Database
Redis: Events & caching
Meilisearch: Search engine (optional)

Quick Start#

git clone https://github.com/open-mercato/open-mercato.git
cd open-mercato
git checkout develop
yarn install
cp apps/mercato/.env.example apps/mercato/.env
yarn generate
yarn initialize
yarn dev
# Visit http://localhost:3000/backend

Docker Deployment#

# Development mode (hot reload)
docker compose -f docker-compose.fullapp.dev.yml up --build

# Production mode
docker compose -f docker-compose.fullapp.yml up --build -d

API Development Style#

Route Convention: api/<method>/<path>.ts
Quick CRUD: Use makeCrudRoute to build CRUD APIs
Auto Documentation: Export OpenAPI specifications
Input Validation: Zod Schema