Collections

A collection is a row in the system _collections table (JSON-encoded schema + rules) backed by a real SQL table, cb_<name>, with one physical column per field. Editing a collection’s schema runs live ALTER TABLE ADD/DROP COLUMN — there is no separate migration DSL, and changing a field’s type or single/multi cardinality drops and recreates that column (data loss on that column only).

Three collection types exist: base (plain data), auth (gets password/tokenKey/email/emailVisibility/verified columns and the full auth-endpoint surface for free), and view (backed by a real SQL VIEW; writes are rejected).

System collections ship built in: _superusers, _mfas, _otps, _externalAuths, _authOrigins, _teams, _team_members, _cron_jobs, _webhooks, _audit_log, _push_subscriptions, and the default users auth collection.

Collection ids are deterministic — pbc_<crc32(type + name)> — the same formula PocketBase itself uses internally, which is what lets migrate-from-pocketbase skip an id-remapping step entirely.