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Service Designer overview

Service Designer is a visual development tool within KAIZEN to help you build and manage your application's backend services and APIs. While the App Designer handles the visual user interface (what the user sees), the Service Designer controls the underlying logic (what the system does). It is the engine that processes data, executes business rules, and connects your application to the database.

You can use the Service Designer and custom code to execute backend service logic, which refers to detailed business rules and data operations on the server.

In KAIZEN studio console, find your project and click Theme button to open the Service Designer.

Key capabilities​

Service Designer allows you to visually define your entire backend structure without writing extensive backend code:

  • Controller management: Creates controllers that act as the traffic directors for your backend, receiving incoming HTTP requests from the frontend and routing them to the correct logic.

  • API endpoint configuration: Defines and exposes the specific REST API endpoints that your frontend components will call to retrieve, update, or delete data.

  • Data processing: Configure the logic required to process user inputs and interact seamlessly with your database.

  • Modular design: Provides native support for a microservices architecture, to help you build small, independent modules.

Service Designer is organised into a two-panel layout for efficient navigation and configuration:

  1. Settings panel (left): This panel displays a hierarchical tree of all services, organised by their core components. From here, the user can browse and interact with Controllers, Datasources, Data Types, External Providers and more.

    You can perform the following actions:

  2. Configuration panel (right): This is the main workspace where the user configures the selected component. The content here is contextual and changes based on the item selected in the settings panel.

Main actions​

Add a service​

To create a new service, click the + sign in the top toolbar of the settings panel. During creation, define the service name and the Java package structure for its components, including the service layer, data models (VO), and Data Access Objects (DAO).

Each new service appears as a top-level node in the settings panel and can contain its own controllers, datasources, data types, and external providers.

note

Adding a database connection is the prerequisite for using it in Service Designer. For more information, refer to Add a connection.

Generate code​

For more information, refer to Generate the frontend code and Generate the backend code.

Import or export a service​

For more information, refer to Import or export a service.

Switch branch​

Click Switch branch in the top toolbar to change the active Git branch. This allows the user to work on different versions of the service configuration and switch between development, testing, and production branches.

Expand all​

Click Expand all in the top toolbar to expand every node in the settings panel tree. This provides a full view of all services, controllers, datasources, and data types at once.

Collapse all​

Click Collapse all in the top toolbar to collapse every node in the settings panel tree. This is useful for reducing visual clutter when working with many services.

Show Inactive Services & Datasources​

Click Show Inactive in the top toolbar to toggle the visibility of inactive services and datasources. When enabled, items that have been deactivated are displayed in the settings panel, allowing the user to review or reactivate them as needed.

Last updated on 20 May 2026