mutt

Mutt is a node.js library that allows you to seamlessly share view templates between a browser and a thin node.js layer.

This allows you to serve fully-formed HTML pages for any portion of your app, while being capable of reusing the exact same underlying code for generating views on the client.

Initially inspired by airbnb's rendr, mutt shares a similar vision through a simpler & less opinionated approach (works with any templating library, no dependency on backbone, connect middleware allows for easy integration in a larger app).

Philosphy

In the holy grail of web applications, both client and server:

• talk to an external API
• share the capacity to render view templates
• share the user session

How it works

              CLIENT
                |    
                |     
                |
                V
      |----------------------|
      |                      |
      |     Reverse Proxy    |
      |   (node-http-proxy)  |
      |----------------------|
          |              |
          | *            | /api/*
          |              |
      |-------|       |-------|    
      |       |       |       |
      |  mutt |------>|  API  |
      |       |   |   |       |
      |-------|   |   |-------|
                  |
           (shared session)

The application stack sits behinds a reverse proxy (the mutt.proxy element). The 'mutt' app is a connect/express web application that uses the mutt.middleware.

The mutt middleware enables sharing of the session by the express app & the client by copying the original request's authentication cookies onto the internal api request.

The mutt middleware creates a req.api method which is an HTTP REST client to the API.