Cro

Structuring services built with Cro

Setting up a simple Cro service serving a handful of routes is pretty easy: stick them into a route block, pass it to the HTTP server, and that's it. The cro stub HTTP templates place that route block in a module, leaving the server setup to be done in a service.raku script. This means that unit tests can use the module with the route block, and tests can be written using Cro::HTTP::Test.

This will suffice for small, simple services. However, it won't make for a maintainable system once one reaches tens or hundreds of routes. This document explores some ways to structure larger applications and services, and keep them testable.

Cro is not a framework§

Cro is a set of tools and libraries, rather than a framework. This may sound like an academic point, and Cro's designers fully expect it will be variously called a "web framework", "service framework", and so forth. However, the distinction does come with some consequences.

The line between library and framework is blurry, but in general, frameworks own the "main loop" of a program and call your code, while libraries are code that you call. Further, frameworks tend to assume that applications revolve around them, and so have no qualms about providing an overall structure. By contrast, libraries expect to be just one ingredient in the program pie. Thus, Cro does not try to impose an overall architecture on programs using it.

Frameworks do, however, provide some comfort that one is heading in a reasonable direction. This document provides design/architecture suggestions for those building Cro HTTP services and applications, and wondering how one might structure them as they become larger.

Keep route handlers focused§

Much of software design is about working out what belongs where. Cro route handlers are the place to implement the mapping between HTTP and your model (where the model may be a domain model, a data model, etc.) Thus, it's quite reasonable for route handlers to:

  • Enforce authentication/authorization (typically through a subset type on the request auth object)

  • Map the request to an appropriate bit of model logic

  • Transform the data in the request into a command object or model object

  • Map the results of an operation into a HTTP response

  • Map any model errors into the appropriate HTTP error

However, avoid:

  • Doing database queries directly from the route handler

  • Putting business logic in the route handler

Instead, factor these out into separate functions or objects, as appropriate. This means it is possible to test the route handlers and, potentially, the business logic in isolation. It also will make it easier to refactor, and to re-use the same logic in a non-Cro context in the future if required.

Don't have one giant `route` block§

The Cro::HTTP::Router provides both include and delegate for composing applications out of many route blocks. So, instead of:

sub routes() is export {
    route {
        get -> 'images', *@path {
            static 'resources/images', @path;
        }

        get -> 'css', $file {
            static 'frontend-build/css', $file;
        }

        get -> 'product', $id {
            ... "route handler goes here"
        }
    }
}

One can pull the route handlers for serving assets out:

sub routes() is export {
    route {
        include assets();

        get -> 'product', $id {
            ... "route handler goes here"
        }
    }
}

sub assets() {
    route {
        get -> 'images', *@path {
            static 'resources/images', @path;
        }

        get -> 'css', $file {
            static 'frontend-build/css', $file;
        }
    }
}

These can be spread over multiple modules. Both include and delegate support adding a prefix of one or more route segments to the URI also, meaning there's no need to repeat it in every single route.

use Routes::Assets;
use Routes::Catalogue;
use Routes::Checkout;

sub routes() is export {
    route {
        # No prefix
        include asset-routes();
        # /catalogue prefix
        include 'catalogue' => catalogue-routes();
        # /shop/checkout prefix
        include <shop checkout> => checkout-routes();
    }
}

Nested uses of include and delegate are permitted, to allow recursive application of this approach.

With include, the routes from the nested router are included into the same URI matcher, so in that sense it's much like they are textually included in the route block that performs the include. However, any before-matched and after-matched middleware inside of an included route block will only apply to the routes inside of that block. For more details on middleware handling, and on when to use delegate instead of include, see the section on composing routes in the Cro::HTTP::Router documentation.

A functional structure for dependencies§

An application will not just have route handlers. Instead, the route handlers will dispatch operations to, or request results from, other components (for example, data access layers, data models, or domain objects). To enable testing of route blocks in isolation from these, it is advisable to take them as arguments to the sub enclosing the route block.

sub user-routes(MyApp::UserDB $db, MyApp::EmailSender $email) {
    route {
        get -> LoggedInUser $user, 'profile' {
            content 'application/json', $db.get-user-profile($user.id);
            CATCH {
                when X::MyApp::NoSuchUser {
                    not-found;
                }
            }
        }

        ...
    }
}

This facilitates testing of the logic in the route handlers in isolation from these dependencies, for example by stubbing them using a module such as Test::Mock.

These dependencies can in turn be passed along as needed to other subs that contain route blocks to be included.

Finally, the top-level entry point of the application initializes the real versions of the various dependencies, and passes them in.

An object-oriented structure§

One might prefer a more object-oriented approach. This may come in useful if wishing to use an existing dependency injection container, instead of passing the dependencies down explicitly from the top level (which is fine up to a point, but risks getting out of hand in a large application).

Imagine we have a DI container where an is injected trait specifies a dependency provided by the container. We could instead place our route block into a method inside of this, and use the dependencies.

unit class Routes::User;

has MyApp::UserDB $.db is injected;
has MyApp::EmailSender $.email is injected;

method routes() {
    route {
        get -> LoggedInUser $user, 'profile' {
            content 'application/json', $!db.get-user-profile($user.id);
            CATCH {
                when X::MyApp::NoSuchUser {
                    not-found;
                }
            }
        }
        ...
    }
}

A top-level Routes class might then depend on the various other route handler classes.

unit class Routes;

has Routes::User $.user-routes is injected;

method routes() {
    route {
        include 'user' => $!user-routes.routes();
    }
}

One then writes tests by constructing the objects with test doubles (mocks, stubs, etc.) instead of the real thing that the container would use. The top-level route block is obtained by having the container construct the dependency tree, and calling the routes method on the resulting object.

A note on concurrency§

Route handlers may run in parallel, on multiple threads. This means that any state held inside of the sub or class holding the route block must be OK with that.

If the model logic consists of making calls to a database, then there's not much to worry about so long as the underlying database drivers are good with that (for example, DB::Pg will handle this situation well). However, if the application has in-memory state, it will need to be protected.

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