Express applications as modules
PolyApp is a simple package which aims to solve two needs:
- Create
Expressapplications without the hurdle of reimplementing the server logic - Easy deploying of containers which have one or more
Expressmodules
PolyApp helps to save time and money. Deploy several modules in the same PolyApp meanwhile you are short of resources. When your demand and resources grow, split easily the modules into more PolyApps so they can handle the traffic.
PolyApp is available on npm. To be able to create a container with PolyApp and some modules you need to install the PolyApp dependency first:
npm install --save polyapp
There are two elements:
- PolyApp (this package) which runs a instance of Express framework.
- PolyApp modules which simply exposes a Express router.
You can create a container to deploy as many modules as you want simply following the next steps:
- Install PolyApp (using npm) and your modules (with npm, git submodules, placing them on a folder or whatever you prefer)
- Require PolyApp and your modules
- Create an instance of PolyApp
- Include your modules in PolyApp
- Start the PolyApp server
Done! You can see steps 2 to 5 in next section.
Here you have a container example. You simply initialize PolyApp and include as many modules as you want. There is a basic module example following this piece of code.
var PolyApp = require('../polyapp');
var poly = new PolyApp();
poly.port = 8080;
var testModule = require('./test_module');
poly.include(testModule);
poly.start();This example is very stupid but it works for illustrating the API. Modules become more interesting when your router exposes full services with multiple endpoints.
var express = require('express');
var OK_STATUS_CODE = 200;
module.exports = function Module(server, options) {
this.router = express.Router();
this.router.get('/test', function(req, res, next) {
res.status(OK_STATUS_CODE).send('It works!');
});
};Documentation is available here.
Feel free to use the GitHub issue tracker to report any bugs or file feature requests. In case you found a bug and have no GitHub account, feel free to email me: fcanela.dev at gmail dot com.
Pull requests are welcome. I also love technical discussions, so feel free to open a issue on the tracker.
To begin developing clone the GitHub repository and install dependencies with npm install.
The module has some npm scripts which could be useful for developing purpose:
npm startwatches for changes and runs testsnpm run healthlints the library and runs testsnpm run docsgenerates the markdown documentation from JsDocs
- CORS fast and easy management
- Cluster
- API to include middleware
Copyright (c) 2016 Francisco Canela. Licensed under the MIT license.
This project uses Semver for versioning.
Until the software reaches 1.0.0 I would discourage the use for non-recreative projects.
Koa will break the routes callback API as soon as async/await support is introduced in Node (source). I may migrate PolyApp to Koa when that happens. The later have a lot of features that fits with the project concept.
A reverse proxy (for example, nginx) in front of PolyApp should work. It also makes updating the certificates and configuring SSL a lot easier.
If a reverse proxy does not solve your problem, please, open a issue explaining your case so we can discuss about it.
This project is so simple that I hesitate to call it framework, but as it forces you to certain architecture yes, it could be considered a framework.
Worse, this can be considered a framework on top of another framework. Please, ask your deity for my forgiveness: I created another monster.
My excuse: It solves a problem that I have.
Because deploying a Docker image of each application can take a lot of memory.
I am fan of Docker and microservices architectures. You can have a Docker container with all the services with PolyApp meanwhile you are low of resources or traffic. Later, when you can create images with ease images of PolyApp running only one service each.