Monospace from Directus - The governed API layer for every app, person, and agent
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Monospace sits between enterprise data and everyone who builds on it. Connect any data source, and your developers, business teams, and AI agents get live, read-write access to it. All under the same granular permissions model, with no data copied or moved. Your oldest databases weren't built with AI or modern apps in mind. Monospace generates interfaces directly from them, as they are, introspecting the schema and queries in real time, so they don’t need to be rebuilt.
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Hi Product Hunt... Ben here, CEO of Directus 👋
Years ago, we built Directus because every project started the same way: a database full of data and weeks of work before anyone could safely build on it.
That problem hasn’t stood still. The data is spread across more systems and the amount of people who need it keeps growing. Developers shipping apps, business teams who want to build their own tools, and AI agents. Every project adds another integration and another set of permissions to maintain.
Monospace is our answer. A governed API layer between your data and everyone who builds on it. Connect any database, API or SaaS system you run, and people, apps and agents get live read-write access under one permissions model. Each caller gets its own key. Row and field-level rules decide what it can see on every request. No data copied or moved, and you self-host it.
We would love to hear your feedback and questions. Really appreciate you taking the time to take a look at our launch!
@benhaynes love the approach of introspecting the schema on the fly instead of forcing a migration. congrats for ship
thanks for the support!
follow-up question: what should @Directus launch next from your perspective?
@benhaynes If i hook up two databases, Does it pulls data from both at once? or does it stay separate?
@benhaynes @hemendra_khatik Monospace leaves your data where it lives naturally. We are not pulling any data at all, just making it available in a standardized API. When a request comes in to Monospace we plan the query across the individual data sources and serve it as a single result.
That means we do allow you to create virtual relations between different data sources. You can have customer data live in one database and their orders in a separate database and still query it with a single request (or have your agent request it with a single MCP tool call) without additional round trips or N+1 queries.
@benhaynes @hanneskuettner Oh that makes lots of sense now. Would definitely try it!
@benhaynes @hemendra_khatik You can easily spin it up locally if you head over to our docs
@benhaynes @hemendra_khatik You can create relations between the two databases and both will be queried at the same time if needed.
@benhaynes S/O for the great work on this launch, had a blast collaborating with the team
@fmerian Thank you!! What a day... and it was great having you be part of it!
@benhaynes looking forward to your future launches!!
@benhaynes Congrats on the launch! 🎉 The idea of one governed API layer for data, apps, and AI agents is really interesting. Wishing you and the Directus team a successful launch! 🚀
thanks for the support! let's spread the word on X, repost this
Hi all, I'm Hannes, engineer and engineering manager at Monospace.
We've been building Monospace for some time now, and I'm absolutely excited that today it's public. Ben covered why we built it and James covered what it does, so I'll stick to the engineering side.
Every new way of accessing data tends to bring another implementation of roughly the same logic. You build an API with permissions, then internal tooling, then an MCP server for agents, and now several places have to agree on who can do what.
In Monospace those interfaces share one model. You define permissions once, and REST and the built-in MCP server all evaluate them at query time.
The part I most want to see tested is cross-source relations and custom connectors. You can relate a Postgres table to a MySQL table and query both in one request. The data stays where it is; we don't copy it anywhere first. With custom connectors (in Preview!) you can build a small adapter and make Monospace talk to any of proprietary system!
I'd love to hear from anyone trying this against the kind of systems that don’t look good in demos: messy schemas, internal APIs that need custom connectors, and permission models that have accumulated years of exceptions.
I'll be in the comments all day if you hit something odd or want to know how any of it works.
@hanneskuettner What an immense effort to get here! And only just the beginning - a pleasure to work with you and the talented team on this.
Really looking forward to your future launches!
@hanneskuettner We could have only done it with your dedication Hannes ❤️
@hanneskuettner @rebaar 🐐
Looking forward to seeing what the community will build with this new product by @Directus
@fmerian Me too!
@fmerian Very exciting!
@fmerian I'm so curious!
Hey all, I'm a Monospace engineer chiming in. We're thrilled to be launching the product today, since we finally get to share all the exciting functionality and polish the team has carefully put in. Be sure to check out the custom connectors and extensions that will allow you to handle most APIs you have today. We're very excited to see what you build with it!
@phkaznowski Thank you so much for the amount of work and care you have put into the product since joining us. I'm truly excited to see where we can take this product!
@phkaznowski They’re so sweet! Such a superpower have APIs and databases linked seamlessly and clicking through across everything. It’s a bit surreal to not have so many separate programs but just one really good one
Wow it’s been 2 years since the team first heard the vision back in Portugal. It’s so good to see it all come to fruition.
@phazonoverload Thanks Kevin! From Portugal to here, look at us!
@phazonoverload Thanks my friend! It is exciting and really powerful.
@phazonoverload thank you for your continuous support!!
Love the idea and the animations across the website. Would definetly be playing around this on a pet project i'm working on.
@mufassir_kazi Love hearing that! Thank you for the support and definitely give it a try, there is a super quick getting started on our docs. Let us know how it goes!
yes, and make sure to add your review here! producthunt.com/products/directus/reviews
@mufassir_kazi Web team did an incredible job on this, props to @vckychn for the beautiful interactions and for masterminding the whole thing! She smashed it 👏👏
@vckychn @lumunade stunning work indeed 👏👏
@mufassir_kazi Ahhhh! Excited to hear you got to explore our website! Always great to have @lumunade with the many assists 💯. Now I’m curious what you’ll end up building 🤔. Care to give us a lil sneak peek 👀?
@tessak22 Thanks Tessa! 🥳
@tessak22 Thanks for the support, Tessa! You're the best
@tessak22 Thank you very much!
Hey All, James here, VP Product at Monospace 👋
Ben covered why we built this, so I'll share a few decisions we made on purpose, since they're usually the first things people ask about:
We never copy your data. Every request goes live to the source, so reads are fresh and writes land in your system of record. No sync jobs, no stale replicas, all while maintaining traceability of what is hitting your data.
More than a gateway. Gateways see traffic. Monospace understands your data model, so every consumers row and and field-level rules are enforced before data is returned.
For example, an agent can change the shipping address on unshipped orders, but never the payment method. Revoke its key and nothing else is affected. The same rules apply to internal tools and apps.
Self-hosted, bring your own database. We don't host your instance or provision storage. The governance layer should sit inside your boundary, connecting to both on-prem and cloud systems as needed.
Curious to hear: which system would you connect first, and what would you build on it?
Monospace definitely is a bold, opinionated product. This is how things should work. Keep up the great work, ?makers 👏👏
Hi there, Jon here from the Monospace Design team - a lot of care has gone into making Monospace feel simple, intuitive and considered - from the bigger workflows down to the smallest interactions I’m really proud of what the team has built, and to have played a part in bringing it to life.
Huge team effort getting here.
Looking forward to hearing what you think!
@lumunade if you pinky promise I can keep the colorful connector icons, maybe we bring the user menu back!
@hanneskuettner 🤝
Hey everyone 👋 It's Marc - I work on the frontend of Monospace. I am insanely proud of the team for shipping this and it is so much fun to be contributing to this project. I have worked on some of the inner workings and components that spread throughout the app. Especially fun was crafting the onboarding, which I hope many users get to experience ✨
@marcba Buddy! What a ride! Has been an absolute blast building Monospace with you so far and I'm excited for what's ahead. Thank you for your attention to detail, and love for the craft!
@marcba @hanneskuettner no detail is too small. S/O for the great work 👏👏