Breadboard
Breadboard is an opinionated inversion of control container for Node.js applications.
Motivation
- Working with
require
is less than ideal.- The same module will have a different key depending on the path of the requiring module.
- Testing a module in isolation, ie. mocking its dependencies, requires hacky solutions that hijack
require
calls. This approach is indeterministic, depending on various seemingly unrelated conditions around how the the module you want to mock was defined.
- Discouraging managing state of the app through side effects when
require
ing. - Single function call to auto-mock a module's dependencies in your tests.
Breadboard will lazily require all your application's dependencies defined in package.json
, all Node native modules and all of your application's modules and store them in a dependencies
object. The object is exposed to your application's modules by calling the modules as functions, passing the dependencies as an argument. As such, your modules are expected to be wrapped in an extra function returning the desired export value, which Breadboard then calls on application start.
Install
npm install breadboard
Example of a module in your application
Consider this CommonJS module:
//startServer.js const d = 'myApp';const createServer = ; module { const server = ; server; return server;};
The Breadboard equivalent would be:
//startServer.js // wrap module in factory functionmoduleexports = // destructure dependencies to get the modules needed debug '/lib/createServer': createServer // return the core functionality of the module as a function return { const server = ; const d = ; server; return server; };;
To start your application:
const breadboard = ; ;
Further examples
Take a look at examples/kitchen
. To run, npm install
then npm start
.
Module keys
Module keys in a Breadboard app are static, ie. are always relative to the container's root folder, starting with /
, and always using /
as path separators, no matter the platform. Consider these example module keys:
/lib/getUser
/middleware/getUser
/logger
Keys for native Node.js modules and 3rd party modules remain the same as if you were using require
.
Breadboard also loads all JSON files. To access them, append .json
to the end of the key, eg. /data/userPasswords.json
.
API
breadboard(options)
Returns a promise chained to the return value of your application's entry point, which might be another promise or a concrete value.
options
options.entry
(String | Function<Object>)
String
Module key for the entry point of the application.
Function<Object>
Will be called as the entry point module, with resolved dependencies as the argument.
options.containerRoot
(String)
Path relative to the current working directory, from which all module keys will be resolved
options.initialState
(Object)
The argument the entry
function will be called with.
options.blacklist
(Array<String>)
List of modules from your package.json
which you wish Breadboard not to load. If you want to defer a require
call to a 3rd party module, put it in the blacklist
and require
manually in your code.
options.substitutes
(Object)
A Breadboard module-key to module mapping to indicate which modules you want to substitute across the whole application with your custom implementation. Useful when testing integration of multiple modules. You could substitute eg. a database connector with a stub to remove a running database as a dependency of your tests.
Testing
In tests require your Breadboard modules as if they were CommonJS modules. You can then supply your own stubs and spies as test doubles. Consider the following example:
/index
Test subject module module { return { const '/widgets/createDough': createDough '/pasta/createPapardelle': createPapardelle 'debug': debug } = deps; const d = ; ; };};
/index
Test for ;;; ;
autoMock
autoMock
automatically replaces every dependency of a given Breadboard module with a Sinon.JS stub.
autoMock
API
autoMock(factory, options)
factory
(Function)
The Breadboard factory function to build the subject to test.
options
(Object)
options.mocks
(Object)
A Breadboard module-key to module mapping to indicate which modules you want to mock manually.
returns Object<subject, deps, sandbox>
subject
The module returned by factory
.
deps
The mock dependencies injected into subject
.
sandbox
Instance of a Sinon.JS sandbox.
autoMock
example
/index
Test subject module module { return { const '/widgets/createDough': createDough '/pasta/createPapardelle': createPapardelle 'debug': debug } = deps; const d = ; ; };};
/index
Test for module ;;; const mockDough = 'dough';const subject: main sandbox deps = ;const debugSpy = sandbox; depsdebug;deps'/widgets/createDough';;