Confusion about offline-first architecture in tanstack-db-expo-starter

[AxelBriche]

Hi,
I'm confused about the architecture of the "tanstack-db-expo-starter" example, which claims to be "offline-first".

Issues I've identified:

1. Express API dependency: Mutations go through an Express API (port 3001) that cannot run on iOS. This requires a constant internet connection.

2. Electric SQL Server: The example uses Electric SQL locally via Docker (localhost:3000), but:

• Docker cannot run on iOS
• Using a hosted Electric server loses offline capabilities
• Mutations don't seem to be handled locally

Questions:

• Is this truly an "offline-first" architecture?
• How is this supposed to work on a real iOS app?
• Should mutations go directly through Electric SQL instead of the Express API?

Am I misunderstanding the intended architecture?

Thanks!

[KyleAMathews]

The phrase in the readme is "works offline". There are many flavors of meaning off "offline" so your mileage may vary depending on what you need. But by this we mean that data loaded into the app is still available and you can queries and do optimistic mutations while offline.

It's still a server oriented architecture with sync out of postgres and writes to an API. If this isn't what you're looking for, sorry for the confusion.