A comprehensive guide to building modern web applications with the Dext Framework for Delphi.
- Where to Start? - Choosing your path
- Getting Started - Installation & Hello World
- Web Framework - Minimal APIs & Controllers
- ORM - Database access & queries
- Security - Authentication & Authorization
- Deployment - Publishing your application
- AI Assistants & Skills - Integrating AI capabilities
- Minimal APIs - Route handlers with
MapGet,MapPost - Controllers - MVC-style controllers
- Model Binding - JSON/Form to objects
- Routing - URL patterns & parameters
- Middleware - Request pipeline
- WebBroker Adapter ⭐ NEW - Deploy as ISAPI/CGI on IIS/Apache
- HTMX & Streamable ⭐ NEW - Native HTMX and session state management
3. Generic Collections ⭐ NEW
- Introduction - IList, IDictionary & LINQ
- Ownership & Safety - Memory management guide
- JWT Authentication - Token-based auth
- Claims Builder - User claims
- OpenAPI / Swagger - API documentation
- Rate Limiting - Request throttling
- CORS - Cross-origin requests
- Response Caching - Cache headers
- Health Checks -
/healthendpoint
- Getting Started - First entity & context
- Entities & Mapping -
[Table],[Column],[PK] - Querying -
Where,OrderBy,Take - Smart Properties - Type-safe expressions
- JSON Queries ⭐ NEW - Query JSON/JSONB columns
- Specifications - Reusable query patterns
- Relationships - 1:1, 1:N, Lazy Loading
- Migrations - Schema versioning
- Scaffolding - DB-first code generation
- Multi-Tenancy - Schema/DB/Column isolation
- Zero-Code CRUD - REST from entities
- Hubs (SignalR) - WebSocket messaging
- Mocking -
Mock<T>and verification - Assertions - Fluent
Should()syntax - Snapshots - JSON snapshot testing
- Commands -
dextCLI overview - Migrations -
migrate:up,migrate:down - Scaffolding -
dext scaffold - Testing -
dext test --coverage - Dashboard -
dext ui
- Dependency Injection
- Background Services
- Configuration -
IOptions<T>(JSON, YAML) - Async API -
TAsyncTask - Template Engine (S09) ⭐ NEW - Razor-style AST engine
- Serialization & Globalization ⭐ NEW - Handling locales and JSON formats
- Resilience Pipeline (S32) ⭐ NEW - Polly-style fault handling (Retry, Circuit Breaker, Fallback, Timeout)
- Delphi64RTL Optimization (Win64) ⭐ NEW - Using optimized assembly and SIMD
- Direct Codecs & Static Generation ⭐ NEW - Direct-offset and generated codec paths
11. Desktop UI (Dext.UI) ⭐ NEW
- Navigator Framework - Push/Pop navigation with middlewares
- Magic Binding - Declarative UI data binding
- MVVM Patterns - Architecture guide
- REST Client - Fluent HTTP Client
- TCP/UDP Sockets - Low-level networking and connection handling
- MQTT Client & Broker - Pub/sub message routing and MQTT protocol
13. AI Assistants & MCP ⭐ NEW
- AI Skills - Native AI integration skills
- MCP Server - Model Context Protocol implementation
- Dext.AI.Agent - Single-agent ReAct loop (LangChain-style)
- Dext.AI.Graph - Graph orchestration, checkpointing, human-in-the-loop, subgraphs (LangGraph-style)
Each chapter references working examples from the Examples/ directory:
| Example | Topics |
|---|---|
| Web.MinimalAPI | Minimal APIs, Routing |
| Web.ControllerExample | Controllers, DI |
| Web.JwtAuthDemo | JWT, Authentication |
| Web.SwaggerExample | OpenAPI, Documentation |
| Web.RateLimitDemo | Rate Limiting |
| Web.DatabaseAsApi | Zero-Code CRUD |
| Web.DextStore | Full E-commerce API |
| Orm.EntityDemo | ORM Basics |
| Hubs | Real-Time SignalR |
| Desktop.MVVM.CustomerCRUD | Navigator, MVVM, Testing |
| AI.AgentDemo | Dext.AI.Agent, ReAct loop |
| AI.GraphDemo | Dext.AI.Graph, checkpointing, HITL, subgraphs |
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Last updated: January 2026