Page Contents

In LoopBack 3, models are the cornerstone. They describe shape of data (schema), provide persistence-related behavior and implement public (REST) API. Besides this core functionality, there are many ways how to extend the built-in behavior.

In LoopBack 4, many things changed but some remain the same. A model class is no longer responsible for everything. We have Models to describe shape of data, Repositories to provide persistence-related behavior and finally Controllers to implement public APIs. Under the hood, repositories are re-using a lot of the same persistence implementation you may know from LoopBack 3, therefore some concepts remain unchanged.

To make the migration guide easier to navigate, we split model-related instructions into several sub-sections.

  1. Migrating model definitions and built-in APIs describes how to migrate the core of your Models - the model definition, persistence behavior and public API provided by the framework itself.

  2. Migrating model relations explains how to migrate relations, from the definition of a relation to its public APIs.

  3. Migrating custom model methods show how to bring over custom methods that are enhancing models with new functionality, adding to the features provided by the framework.

  4. Migrating remoting hooks explains how to migrate hooks that are executed by the REST API layer.

  5. Migrating CRUD operation hooks’ shows how to migrate hooks (observers) that are executed by the persistence layer.

  6. Migrating model mixins provides instructions for migrating mixins - small components that can enhance Model schema, behavior, or both.