Arx

Parts catalog, purchasing, and test-record management for an engineering/manufacturing shop. One Windows desktop app — single executable, no installer, PostgreSQL backend, running at http://localhost:4568.

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What Arx is

Arx is a part and quality-record-centric ERP for engineering and manufacturing shops. Instead of bolting quality onto a parts database as an afterthought, Arx follows each part through its whole life — from the first drawing to the final tested assembly — and keeps a change-controlled record (future feature) at every step. A part number is designed and documented, purchased, received into a traceable lot, inspected, assembled from a bill of materials, and finally tested as an individual unit. At each stage the paperwork that proves what happened — the PO, the receipt, the inspection, the test results — lives in one place and traces back to the exact lots and parts it came from.

flowchart LR
    A["<b>Design</b><br/>part numbers<br/>drawings · BOMs"]
    B["<b>Purchase</b><br/>RFQs · POs"]
    C["<b>Receive</b><br/>into lots"]
    D["<b>Inspect</b><br/>incoming quality"]
    E["<b>Assemble</b><br/>build from BOM"]
    F["<b>Final Test</b><br/>per unit"]
    A --> B --> C --> D --> E --> F

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The result is end-to-end traceability: pick up any finished unit and follow it back through the assemblies, lots, suppliers, and test records that produced it.

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Features

Arx is organized into a few sections, navigable from a single top nav bar:

• Parts — catalog with CSV export, create/edit/duplicate, BOM (view/edit/CSV export, rollup and build cost), where-used lookups, attachments (incl. paste-from-clipboard, primary attachment), order history, price history and qty-break pricing tiers, stock adjustments/transactions, and manufacturer part cross-references.
• Vendors — supplier list, detail/edit, linked parts, PO history, attachments, folder browsing.
• POs — purchase order list with CSV export, create/edit/duplicate, status transitions, receiving, approvals, notes, print-to-PDF, folder browsing, and an RFQ workflow (create RFQ, add supplier quotes, compare, convert to PO).
• Contacts — list, detail, create, edit.
• Records — production test data capture for manufactured units. Engineers define test procedures as forms (steps with pass/fail criteria, spec limits, conditional visibility, result formats). Technicians fill them out per serial number, recording measured values and results. Records can be locked/approved, printed to PDF, bulk-locked, and include an image gallery. Form definitions keep a full edit history; records keep a per-record audit trail.
• Settings — DB connection, attachment/part categories, part numbering, company logo, named queries, user management, per-user preferences (e.g. default PO receiver/contact), backup, utilities report.

Cross-cutting: session-based login, local file/folder browsing for attachments, search/autocomplete across parts, suppliers, and contacts.

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Build

Requires Go 1.27+ and a PostgreSQL database (TLS required).

cd arx_go
build.bat

Outputs arx_go\Arx.exe. Runs all tests before building.

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First Run

1. Copy Arx.exe to a folder and run it. A tray icon appears.
2. Open http://localhost:4568 in a browser.
3. The app redirects to /settings — enter your PostgreSQL connection details.
4. Connection settings are saved to config\local.json; the DB password is saved per-user to %APPDATA%\Arx\local.json. Neither is committed.

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Configuration

Source	Notes
.env (repo root or arx_go/)	Non-secret config: TEST_MODE, DEBUG_MODE
config/local.json	Connection settings — always wins over env, gitignored
%APPDATA%\Arx\local.json	Per-user secrets (DB password, session secret)

DEBUG_MODE=true opens a console window logging SQL queries and per-route round-trip counts/timings, and surfaces extra debug info in some pages. TEST_MODE=true connects to the ArxDev database instead of production.

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Development

# Unit tests (no DB required)
cd arx_go
go test ./...

# Integration tests (live ArxDev DB)
$env:ARX_TEST_DSN="postgres://user:pass@server:5432/ArxDev?sslmode=require"
go test -tags integration ./arx_go/...
# ...or use the test-mode connection saved via Settings instead of a DSN
$env:ARX_TEST_FROM_CONFIG="1"; go test -tags integration ./arx_go/...

See CLAUDE.md for schema conventions, branching rules, and architecture decisions, and ROADMAP.md for what's planned. Contributors are expected to follow the Code of Conduct.

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License

Copyright (C) 2026 Jolls and contributors. Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.