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sidebar_position: 4
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# Project layout

When you generate a new project with `m4g init <project_name>`, it will create a folder like the example below.

```
📦<project_name>
 ┣ 📂.git
 ┣ 📂.venv
 ┣ 📂api
 ┃ ┗ 📂routers
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜hello.py
 ┣ 📂db
 ┃ ┣ 📂engine
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜async_session.py
 ┃ ┣ 📂entities
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜entity_base.py
 ┃ ┣ 📂versions
 ┃ ┣ 📜README
 ┃ ┣ 📜env.py
 ┃ ┣ 📜script.py.mako
 ┃ ┗ 📜settings.py
 ┣ 📜.gitignore
 ┣ 📜alembic.ini
 ┣ 📜db.docker-compose.yml
 ┣ 📜m4g.json
 ┣ 📜main.py
 ┗ 📜requirements.txt
```

Let's go through these one by one.

### .git

The `m4g init` command will initialize new projects with git by default.
If you don't want to use git you can pass the option `--without git` to `m4g init`.

### .venv

To promote isolation of Python dependencies, new projects are initialized with a virtual environment by default.
When you clone a MycroForge repository from git, it won't have a `.venv` folder yet. 
You can run `m4g hydrate` in the root folder of the project to restore the dependencies.

### api/routers/hello.py

This file defines a basic example router, which is imported and mapped in `main.py`. This router is just an example and
can be removed or modified at you discretion.

### db/engine/async_session.py

This file defines the `async_session` function, which can be used to open an asynchronous session    to a database.

### db/entities/entity_base.py

This file contains an automatically generated entity base class that derives from the DeclarativeBase.
All entities must inherit from this class, so that SQLAlchemy & alembic can track them. The entities directory is also 
where all newly generated entities will be stored.

### db/versions

This is where the generated database migrations will be stored.

### db/README

This README file is automatically generated by the alembic init command.

### db/env.py

This is the database environment file that is used by alembic to interact with the database.
If you take a closer look at the imports, you'll see that the file has been modified to assign `EntityBase.metadata` to
a variable called `target_metadata`, this will allow alembic to track changes in your entities. You'll also find that
the `DbSettings` class is used to get the connectionstring. Any time you generate a new database entity, or create a 
many-to-many relation between two entities, this file will also be modified to include the generated classes.

### db/script.py.mako

This file is automatically generated by the alembic init command.

### db/settings.py

This file defines the `DbSettings` class, that is responsible for retrieving the database connectionstring.
You will probably want to modify this class to retrieve the connectionstring from a secret manager at some point.

### .gitignore

The default .gitignore file that is generated by the `m4g init` command. Modify this file at your discretion.

### alembic.ini

This file is automatically generated by the alembic init command.

### db.docker-compose.yml

A docker compose file for running a database locally.

### m4g.json

This file contains some configs that are used by the CLI, for example the ports to map to the API and database.

### main.py

The entrypoint for the application. When generating entities, many-to-many relations or routers, this file will be
modified to include the generated files.

### requirements.txt

The requirements file containing the Python dependencies.
Whenever you run `m4g install` or `m4g uninstall` this file will be updated too.