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Amber 2.0 Beta

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Published 2026-08-13. V2 is a prerelease; the web core is release-gated and other previews are named separately. What beta means.

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Amber 2.0 Beta

Amber 2.0.0-beta.5 is available for evaluation. The V2 release train remains a prerelease, but the web path is deliberately backwards compatible and mostly additive. Pin the exact beta, test upgrades, and do not treat it as a formal production-support promise.

The release-gated first-run path is a server-rendered ECR web application created by the standalone Amber CLI. It includes routing, controllers, typed configuration, sessions, Grant ORM, Micrate migrations, SQLite, fingerprinted static assets, tests, and a development watcher without requiring a database server.

Run from: a parent directory where my_app/ can be created. Commands after cd my_app run from the generated application root.

Terminal
brew install amberframework/amber_cli/amber_cli
amber new my_app
cd my_app
amber generate scaffold Pet name:string:required species:string:required adopted:bool
amber database migrate
crystal spec
amber watch

Web is the default application type. amber new my_app --type web is the explicit equivalent. Native generation is a separate preview surface.

Start with Installation for the platform matrix, checksums, and troubleshooting, then follow the web-app walkthrough. The web template reference explains every generated layer and its release boundary.

What is in the framework beta

  • MVC controllers and ECR views
  • routing, pipelines, constraints, and named routes
  • typed request schemas and validation
  • memory-backed jobs, sessions, and WebSocket pub/sub
  • mailer APIs
  • typed YAML configuration with environment-variable overrides
  • Grant ORM with SQLite by default and PostgreSQL/MySQL options
  • Micrate-powered migrations and database maintenance commands
  • database-backed model and HTML CRUD scaffold generators
  • deterministic CSS, JavaScript, image, font, and file fingerprinting
  • manifest-aware ECR helpers, SRI, compression, and immutable asset caching
  • standalone CLI and diagnostics LSP

What is preview

Generated authentication and API resources, Gemma file attachments, and native-app generation have useful code and documentation, but they are not part of the beta web-app release gate. Preview pages are labeled so new users do not mistake them for the supported path.

See Beta support for the exact platform and generator matrix.

Migrating

Amber V2 removes Kilt and Slang, adopts typed configuration, and extracts the CLI from the framework repository. The new CLI template selects its driver and Grant explicitly; the framework shard itself remains independent of an ORM. Existing apps should follow the migration guide and pin the beta instead of a moving development branch.

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