{"slug": "nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation", "title": "NocoBase 3.0 answers AI coding by becoming the foundation", "summary": "NocoBase has been releasing 3.0 alphas since July 30th, reaching alpha.13 by August 31st, without an official announcement. The documentation reveals an AI Builder section with an AI Portal feature, and package analysis shows 3.0 adds two new packages compared to the 2.3 beta line: plugin-multi-portal and portal-template-default, indicating a focus on multi-portal management and AI integration.", "body_md": "[NocoBase](https://www.nocobase.com/) has been publishing 3.0 alphas since July 30th. As of today it is at `3.0.0-alpha.13`\n\n. There is still no release announcement — nothing on the blog, no \"Announcing NocoBase 3.0\" post.\n\nThat silence is easy to misread. The blog has been busy: **2.2 shipped as a stable release on August 23rd and got its own announcement**, and the beta line has already moved on to 2.3. Only 3.0 keeps stacking up releases without a word.\n\nMeanwhile the documentation is already there. `docs.nocobase.com`\n\ncarries an **AI Builder section spanning 18 pages**, and its centerpiece — the [AI Portal Quick Start](https://docs.nocobase.com/ai-builder/ai-portal/) — states a prerequisite of ** NocoBase >= 3.0.0-alpha.6**. There is even a link to request a demo environment.\n\nSo 3.0 has not gone unexplained. It has gone unannounced. When someone asked about it on the forum (\"Not 2.3, but 3.0. Is some major update in preparation?\"), a staff member replied with four words: *\"Stay tuned for our release.\"* ([t/13661](https://forum.nocobase.com/t/nocobase-3-0-0/13661))\n\nThis post walks through what the documentation says, then checks it against the packages and a running instance.\n\nHeads up:everything here describes an alpha. The documentation is published, but the release itself is not announced. Nothing guarantees the final 3.0 will look like this.\n\nHow this was checked:the runtime observations come from`3.0.0-alpha.9`\n\n(official Docker image + PostgreSQL 16, fresh install), with 2.1.23 alongside for comparison. Before publishing I re-verified the same facts against the— the portal seed data, the path assignment, and the template version are all unchanged. Package composition comes from npm; release notes from the GitHub Releases API.`3.0.0-alpha.13`\n\npackages\n\nnpm's dist-tags show four lines in flight:\n\n```\nlatest : 2.2.5           ← stable lives here\nbeta   : 2.3.0-beta.6\nalpha  : 3.0.0-alpha.13  ← released 2026-08-31\nv1     : 1.9.74\n```\n\nThe 3.0 alphas started with `alpha.1`\n\non July 30th and reached `alpha.13`\n\nin about a month. (Worth noting if you script against releases: ** alpha.1 through alpha.3 exist only on npm.** GitHub Releases starts at\n\n`alpha.4`\n\n.)Compare the dependencies of `@nocobase/preset-nocobase`\n\n— the package that bundles the built-in plugins — across the three lines:\n\n```\n2.2.5           (stable)  104 packages\n2.3.0-beta.6              104 packages  ← same composition as 2.2\n3.0.0-alpha.13            106 packages  ← 2.3-beta + 2 more\n```\n\nNothing was removed. **Stable and beta carry an identical set, and 3.0 carries exactly two packages more.** That difference is the whole answer:\n\n| Package | Display name | What npm says it does |\n|---|---|---|\n`plugin-multi-portal` |\nPortal manager | Manage multiple portals, each with its own layout and menu |\n`portal-template-default` |\nDefault Template | A React and shadcn/ui template for building a standalone frontend backed by NocoBase |\n\nYou might expect the release notes to point the same direction. Tallying components across `alpha.4`\n\n–`alpha.13`\n\ngives a flat top: Portal manager 9, AI employees 9, client-v2 9.\n\nSplit by date, though, the shape returns:\n\n| Releases | Dates | Portal-related changes |\n|---|---|---|\n| alpha.4–8 | Jul 31 – Aug 10 | 9 |\n| alpha.9–13 | Aug 11 – Aug 31 | 0 |\n\nEvery portal change landed in the first ten days. After that, the alphas absorb general work shared with the 2.3 line — AI employees, client-v2, Workflow, Multi-space. `alpha.10`\n\nalone runs to about 11,000 characters of notes covering the whole product.\n\n**So the release notes aren't a good instrument for \"what is 3.0 adding\".** They carry the 2.3 development stream too. The package composition is the cleaner signal.\n\nThe portal changes from those first ten days do sketch the intent:\n\nThat last one is a different kind of feature from the rest.\n\nThe [AI Portal Quick Start](https://docs.nocobase.com/ai-builder/ai-portal/) opens by stating the problem directly:\n\nWe found that AI vibe coding can produce a good-looking page, but it has a hard time connecting to a real business system — or it ends up reimplementing authentication, permissions, and collection design from scratch.\n\nNocoBase, as a low-code/no-code platform, already provides all of that. You can treat it as the foundation of your system kernel, letting the AI Agent focus on business logic while NocoBase supplies reliable authentication, database, API, and permission infrastructure.\n\nFor this we provide an application entry called\n\nAI Portal. Its source code lives locally and is reserved for the AI Agent to write.\n\nThe division of labor:\n\nWhat I did not expect is that **no-code isn't being replaced**. The [AI Builder landing page](https://docs.nocobase.com/ai-builder/) presents two ways to build a UI, side by side:\n\n| no-code Portal | AI Portal | |\n|---|---|---|\n| Access path | `/v/<name>` |\n`/x/<name>` |\n| Where pages come from | Configured in the UI (AI can edit the configuration) | React source, written by an AI agent |\n| Output | Configuration in the database | Source you can commit to Git |\n| Iteration | Click through the UI, or have AI change the config | Change code, `dev` → `deploy`\n|\n| Freedom | Bounded by block capabilities | Whatever you want |\n| Suits | Standard CRUD, internal admin backends | Custom interactions, complex business systems |\n\nThe docs say plainly that a no-code portal is enough when \"the page structure is very standard\" or when non-coders need to adjust pages themselves. AI Portal is an addition, not a migration.\n\nThe quote says the source \"lives locally\". The [Deployment and Source Management](https://docs.nocobase.com/ai-builder/ai-portal/deploy/) page pins that down:\n\nPortal source lives in three places: the local dev workspace, source storage, and the deployed artifacts.\n\n| Location | What it is |\n|---|---|\nDev workspace |\n(`./<portal>` on the developer's machine`--path` to relocate). This is where the AI agent runs\n|\n| Source storage |\n`nocobase` by default (NocoBase keeps it); switch to `git` for a repository |\n| Deployed artifacts | The build output, served at `/x/<portal>/`\n|\n\nSo \"locally\" means a working directory on someone's laptop, not a directory on the server. You pull the source down, point a coding agent at it, push, and deploy:\n\n```\nnb portal pull main    # fetch the source locally\nnb portal dev main     # dev server, localhost:5173 by default\nnb portal push main --message \"Add customer management page\"\nnb portal deploy main  # afterwards, visit /x/main/\n```\n\nThe prerequisites are worth reading as operational requirements: **Node.js >= 22**, pnpm, the alpha build of `@nocobase/cli`\n\n, and \"an AI Agent, such as **Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor**\". Naming third-party coding tools in your own product documentation is a choice.\n\n**One default deserves attention.** Source storage starts as `nocobase`\n\n, and the docs are candid about what that costs you:\n\nThe default\n\n`nocobase`\n\nis the fastest to start with, since you don't need a repository first.It has no version history though, so a bad change can only be rolled back by overwriting everything.If this Portal will be iterated on long term, move it to Git early.\n\nThe comparison table's \"output: source you can commit to Git\" describes what you *can* configure, not what you get by default.\n\nThat is the official account. The alpha ships as a Docker image, so here is what a fresh install looks like.\n\n```\nimage: nocobase/nocobase:3.0.0-alpha.9\n```\n\nThe `multiPortals`\n\ntable comes seeded with three rows:\n\n| uid | title | portalType | routePath | isDefault |\n|---|---|---|---|---|\n`__default_portal__` |\nMain |\n`ai` |\n`/main` |\ntrue |\n`__default_admin__` |\nDesktop layout | `no-code` |\n`/admin` |\n|\n`__default_mobile__` |\nMobile layout | `no-code` |\n`/mobile` |\n\nThere is now a `portalType`\n\ncolumn, and **the default entry is the ai one**. The familiar admin UI has become a\n\n`no-code`\n\nportal at `/admin`\n\n.The docs describe `/v/`\n\nand `/x/`\n\nprefixes, but `routePath`\n\nin the database holds plain values like `/main`\n\n. I checked what the server actually returns — **including a path that doesn't exist**, which turns out to be the only way to see what is going on:\n\n| Path | Status | What came back |\n|---|---|---|\n`/` |\n200 | The NocoBase SPA |\n`/admin` |\n200 | Same (byte-identical HTML) |\n`/main` |\n200 | Same (byte-identical HTML) |\n`/zzz-nonexistent` |\n200 | Same (byte-identical HTML) |\n`/v/main` |\n200 | A different shell, for no-code portals |\n`/v/zzz-nonexistent` |\n200 | Same as above (byte-identical) |\n`/x/main/` |\n200 | The AI Portal's build output |\n`/x/zzz-nonexistent/` |\n404 |\n— |\n\nA 200 on `/admin`\n\nor `/main`\n\nmeans nothing here. **A nonsense path returns the same HTML**, so those are client-side routes in the SPA. `/v/`\n\nserves its own shell but likewise ignores the name.\n\n`/x/`\n\nis the only prefix where the portal name changes what the server does.`/x/main/`\n\nreturns different HTML and 404s on a name that doesn't exist. Look inside and the asset references are pinned to the portal's own path:\n\n```\n<link rel=\"icon\" type=\"image/x-icon\" href=\"/x/main/favicon.ico\" />\n```\n\n\"The source lives locally and the agent writes it\" turns out to describe how it's served, too: an AI Portal is a **separately built frontend that NocoBase serves**, not a region of the NocoBase UI.\n\nIf you'd rather not boot anything, the same conclusion is sitting in the package. Unpack `plugin-multi-portal`\n\nand the prefix assignment is right there in the bundled JS:\n\n```\nT = \"ai\" === S ? \"/x/\" : \"/v/\"\n```\n\nThat line, the three seeded portals, and the `portalType`\n\nvalues are identical in `alpha.9`\n\n, `alpha.12`\n\n, and `alpha.13`\n\n.\n\n`portal-template-default`\n\nis a **574-file** React scaffold: React 19 with TypeScript, Vite, [Refine](https://refine.dev/) as the data layer, Tailwind CSS 4, shadcn/ui (about 60 components), lucide, vitest, Playwright.\n\nIt carries its own version number — `3.1.1`\n\n, unrelated to the app's. `preset-nocobase`\n\ndepends on it through the caret range `^3.0.3`\n\n, which means **the same 3.1.1 lands whether you install alpha.9 or alpha.13**, and the template can move without the app moving.\n\nIt also ships an ** AGENTS.md**, written for coding agents rather than people:\n\nThis repository is a starter for building a NocoBase-powered application. Keep changes focused on the application being built and follow these guidelines before introducing new abstractions.\n\nThe guidelines tell the agent to search for and reuse existing implementations, to extend `src/components/ui`\n\nby composition instead of editing the shadcn/ui base, to split tests between `tests/`\n\nand `e2e/`\n\n— and to put every dependency in `devDependencies`\n\n, with the reason spelled out: **production serves only the built dist and never installs the project's Node dependencies.** The delivery model was decided before the template was written.\n\nFor what it's worth, that agent-facing documentation is the same material you read in a browser. I diffed the copy bundled under `plugin-ai`\n\n(1,115 files) against the public pages: **the prose is identical**, differing only in front matter and list markers.\n\nShipping documentation for AI agents is **not** a 3.0 feature. 2.1.23 already bundled 1,056 files under `plugin-ai/dist/ai/docs`\n\n, and Skills existed then too.\n\nWhat is new in 3.0 is that **the place to put agent-written code (AI Portal), the scaffold for writing it (the template), and the machinery for running several entries side by side (Portal manager) all arrived together.** The shift is from \"let an agent operate NocoBase\" to \"run an agent-written frontend as the application's front door.\"\n\nAssuming the direction holds, a few things follow.\n\n**The admin UI isn't going anywhere.** `/admin`\n\npersists as a no-code portal, and the docs themselves recommend it for standard CRUD. This widens the menu.\n\n**The ceiling on what you can build moves.** The screens that were awkward in NocoBase were the ones that blocks couldn't express. Writing those in React while auth, permissions, and APIs stay with the platform is a genuine expansion of scope.\n\n**The operational profile changes, though.** AI Portal source lives in a developer's working directory and reaches production through push, build, and deploy. Something that was configured in a browser becomes something that needs a development environment and someone who can drive it. \"No-code, so operations are light\" stops holding for whatever you build this way — and Node.js 22, pnpm, and a coding agent become deployment requirements, not just developer preferences.\n\n**Decide on source storage before you start.** The default keeps no version history, and the docs recommend moving to Git early for anything long-lived. With an agent generating changes, volume and frequency both go up; starting without history is a poor trade.\n\n**Licensing is unclear.** The documentation doesn't say whether AI Portal is Community or commercial, and the pricing page doesn't list it yet. If that matters to your evaluation, it's an open question rather than an answer.\n\nTrying it is cheap — the Docker image is public, and booting it in an isolated environment to look at `/x/main/`\n\ntells you a lot. **Keep an alpha away from real data.**\n\n`alpha.13`\n\nwith `/ai-builder/`\n\n`/v/`\n\nfor no-code, `/x/`\n\nfor AI Portal, with the docs recommending each for different work`/x/`\n\nvaries by portal name`AGENTS.md`\n\naimed at coding agentsPlenty of products promise to build software with AI. NocoBase's answer is to be the part underneath — on the reasoning that a model can produce a presentable screen but not a trustworthy permission model. Whether or not 3.0 lands this way, the way it splits the problem is sound.\n\n*(Runtime observations from 3.0.0-alpha.9; versions and package contents verified against 3.0.0-alpha.13 on 2026-08-31. Alphas move quickly — check the current release before relying on any of this.)*\n\n`nb portal`\n\ncommand reference", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/stale_orbit/nocobase-30-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation-4pcn", "published_at": "2026-09-01 05:51:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-01 06:22:17.000434+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "artificial-intelligence", "ai-products"], "entities": ["NocoBase", "AI Portal", "plugin-multi-portal", "portal-template-default"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nocobase-3-0-answers-ai-coding-by-becoming-the-foundation.jsonld"}}