Smallweb 0.12 - Publish and install flow for smallweb apps

Smallweb 0.12 is out! And it's the first release since 0.8 where I do not feel the need to fondamentally change the routing system 😅.

But this is still a big release! And it even contains a few breaking changes (don't worry, they are easy to fix).

`smallweb install`: A new convention to install and publish smallweb apps

Smallweb now includes a new smallweb install command to install smallweb apps from the web.

Smallweb apps work on top of github repositories. When you run

smallweb install pomdtr/example-app ~/localhost/smallweb-app

smallweb will clone the pomdtr/example-app repository in the ~/localhost/smallweb-app folder.

If the repository contains a smallweb branch, smallweb will checkout this branch. Otherwise, it will checkout the main branch.

This convention is really similar to how github pages work, and you can even repurposes github pages actions to build your smallweb app (see how this blog is built for an example).

Once an app is installed, you can use the git cli to manage them. For example, you can run git pull to update the app to the latest version, or git checkout <hash> to rollback to a previous version. Take a look to the pomdtr/smallweb-puller repository for a simple way to trigger an app update from the ouside.

If you create a smallweb app, make sure to add the smallweb-app topic to your repository.

`smallweb init` now support custom templates

The smallweb init was reworked to allow users to define custom templates from github. Smallweb templates are just github repositories with a smallweb-template topic.

The new command usage is:

smallweb init [dir] [--template <repo>]

When you run smallweb init example --template pomdtr/smallweb-template-astro, smallweb will download the content of the pomdtr/smallweb-template-astro repository in the example folder (without creating a .git folder).

Crons jobs are now defined as HTTP requests

Crons uses to be defined as shell commands:

{
    "crons": [
        {
            "schedule": "0 0 * * *",
            "command": "deno",
            "args": ["run", "--allow-net", "https://example.com/cron.ts"]
        }
    ]
}

This had a few limitations:

crons did not respect the permissions of the app
getting access to the same Deno KV instance was tricky in some cases

For these reasons (and in preparation for the upcoming hosted version of smallweb), crons are now defined as HTTP requests:

// smallweb.json
{
    "crons": [
        {
            "schedule": "0 0 * * *",
            "path": "/refresh",
        }
    ]
}

This is the exact same API as Vercel's cron, so you can refer to their documentation for some examples of how to use it.

This also remove the need for the smallweb cron trigger command (as you can just go to https://<app>/refresh to trigger the cron).

smallweb cron list was moved to smallweb crons.

`smallweb open` has new flags

Smallweb open now supports opening both using the app name or dir:

# open the react.localhost app
smallweb open --app react.localhost
# open the located at ~/localhost/react
smallweb open --dir ~/localhost/react
# open the current directory
smallweb open

Deno KV is now scoped to the hostname

If you map multiple domains to the same dir:

{
    "*-kv.smallweb.run": "~/kv"
}

And uses the default KV instance:

// ~/kv/main.ts

const kv = await Deno.openKv()

example-kv.smallweb.run and another-kv.smallweb.run will not share the same KV instance. This behavior will allow some cool new usecases (ex: preview deployments with distinct KV instances).

If you want to share a db between multiple hostnames, you can always specify a kv path in your code:

const kv = await Deno.openKv({ path: "./kv.db" })

What's next?

I really feel smallweb is in a good state right now, and I want to grow its community. I just bought a new mic and plan to record some videos to showcase smallweb features on YouTube and Twitter.

Improved logs are still a priority. I want to move logs to their own file instead of using stderr/stdout, and allow you to filter them by app/time by storing them as JSON lines.

Now that we have an efficient way to distribute and install apps, I want to port more apps to smallweb. I hope you'll help me with this one!

And finally, I plan to resume the work on smallweb sister project, smallbrowser.

smallweb install: A new convention to install and publish smallweb apps

smallweb init now support custom templates