Project types

gin-kit has two project types. They differ only in where the generic runtime code lives; your routes, handlers, services, domains, repositories, migrations, and UI stay editable in either project.

	Runtime	Standalone
Core runtime	Versioned gin-kit dependency	Copied into the project
Best for	Production teams and long-lived services	Learning, auditing, or full ownership
Generic tests	In the gin-kit repository	In your generated project
Customization	Options, hooks, middleware, and replace	Edit the source directly
CLI value	runtime (default)	standalone

API and UI are application modes, not project types. Standalone is not a UI or authentication scaffold; it is a source-included runtime choice.

What the standalone vendors

Standalone projects carry copies of the runtime under internal/platform/: config, database, factory, query, httpx (response envelope and request binders), validation, and — for UI projects — session. The HTTP contract is identical in both project types: the same JSON envelope, the same 422 validation details, the same binder helpers. Handler code moves between project types with only an import-path change.