@gasket/core

Installation

Existing apps

npm install @gasket/core

Add a gasket.js file to the root of your project. This can be a .js extension if your package.json has the type field set to module. It is also possible to use with a .ts extension if you have TypeScript configured.

// gasket.js
import { makeGasket } from '@gasket/core';
import LoggerPlugin from '@gasket/plugin-logger';
import MyPlugin from './my-plugin';

export default makeGasket({
  plugins: [
    LoggerPlugin,
    MyPlugin
  ]
});

You can now import the Gasket instance from your gasket.js file into your application code. With a Gasket, you can fire actions that will trigger lifecycles hooked by plugins which encapsulate functionality allowing reuse across many applications.

Registered plugins

A plugin is a module that exports a name and hooks object (See Plugins Guide). In your gasket.js file, you can import plugins and add them to the plugins array of the Gasket configuration.

Lifecycles

When a new Gasket is created, there are three lifecycles executed in the following order:

1. init
2. configure
3. ready

init

The init lifecycle allows the earliest entry to setting up a Gasket instance. It can be used for setting up an initial state.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';

let _initializedTime;

const hooks = {
  init(gasket) {
    _initializedTime = Date.now();
  }
};

export default { name, hooks };

While it is possible to attach properties to the gasket instance, it is not recommended. Instead, a plugin can register actions that can be executed to retrieve values the plugin wishes to make available.

configure

The configure lifecycle is the first lifecycle executed when a Gasket is instantiated. This allows any registered plugins to adjust the configuration before further lifecycles are executed.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';

const hooks = {
  configure(gasket, gasketConfig) {
    // Modify the configuration
    return {
      ...gasketConfig,
      example: true
    };
  }
};

export default { name, hooks };

In this example, we register an action getDoodads that will only execute if the example configuration is set to true. It will then execute the doodads lifecycle, allowing any registered plugin to provide doodads.

ready

The ready lifecycle is the last lifecycle executed and is used to signal that the Gasket instance is fully initialized and ready to be used.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';

const hooks = {
  async ready(gasket) {
    console.log('Gasket is ready!');    
  }
};

export default { name, hooks };

Actions

Plugins can register actions that can be fired by the application code where the Gasket is imported, or in other plugins.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';

const actions = {
  async getDoodads(gasket) {
    if (gasket.config.example) {
      const dodaads = await gasket.exec('dodaads');
      return dodaads.flat()
    }
  }
};

export default { name, actions };

If a plugin needs to make properties available to other plugins, it should register an action that can be executed to retrieve the value.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';

+ let _initializedTime;

+ const actions = {
+   getInitializedTime() {
+     return _initializedTime;
+   }
+ };

const hooks = {
  init(gasket) {
-    gasket.initializedTime = Date.now();
+    _initializedTime = Date.now();
  },
  configure(gasket) {
-    const time = gasket.initializedTime;
+    const time = gasket.actions.getInitializedTime();
    // do something with time...
  }
};

- export default { name, hooks };
+ export default { name, actions, hooks };

Debugging

Gasket makes use of the debug module to provide various debug outputs. Gasket packages and plugins use the gasket namespace.

DEBUG=gasket:* npm run start

Tracing

You can narrow down to see the action and lifecycle execution order in the console output under the gasket:trace namespace.

DEBUG=gasket:trace* npm run start

The following symbols indicate the step and type of execution:

• ⋌ New Trace Branch
• ★ Action Start
• ◆ Synchronous Lifecycle Start
• ◇ Asynchronous Lifecycle Start
• ↪ Plugin lifecycle Hook

When ever the app or a plugin executes a lifecycle or an action, it will be passed a traceable proxy object, which can be used to follow the execution path of the application. Any action or lifecycle that is executed from the root gasket object will start a new trace "branch". New branches can be created by calling gasket.traceBranch() to help debug certain lifecycle flows.

Additionally, it is possible to start fresh traces by calling gasket.traceRoot(). This method should will exit the current branch's trace history and start a fresh. Use this sparingly only for situations such as tracing handling for new requests.

Recursion Protection

Gasket uses the trace history to catch and prevent infinite recursion. If a lifecycle is executed more than once in the same trace history, it will throw an error and halt the execution.

While it is ok to execute the same action at various steps in an event chain, you must avoid calling the same lifecycle from within itself. Memoization can help avoid this issue, and using req as a key can help for request-specific memoization, which is also a good performance optimization.

// gasket-plugin-example.js

const reqMap = new WeakMap();

const name = 'gasket-plugin-example';
const actions = {
  async getDoodads(gasket, req) {
    if(!reqMap.has(req)) {
      const doodads = await gasket.exec('doodads', req);
      reqMap.set(req, doodads);
    }
    return reqMap.get(req);
  }
};
const hooks = {
  // ...
};

export default { name, actions, hooks };