Standard Library API Development, Deployment, and Management Tools

repo name	stdlib/lib
repo link	https://github.com/stdlib/lib
homepage	https://stdlib.com
language	JavaScript
size (curr.)	418 kB
stars (curr.)	3697
created	2016-08-08
license	MIT License

Standard Library is an API Development, Hosting and Integration Platform

Standard Library Setup | Node | Python | Ruby | Web

Introduction

Standard Library is the fastest, easiest way to build infinitely scalable, self-healing APIs. The Standard Library platform consists of three components:

1. A central registry and library for APIs
2. A scalable, serverless hosting platform
3. Simple command line tooling for building and managing API development

Standard Library is based on Function as a Service (“serverless”) architecture, initially popularized by AWS Lambda. You can use Standard Library to build modular, scalable APIs for yourself and other developers in minutes without having to manage servers, gateways, domains, write documentation, or build SDKs. Your development workflow has never been easier - focus on writing code you love, let Standard Library handle everything else.

Standard Library uses an open specification called FunctionScript for function definitions and execution. If you run into concerns or questions as you’re building from this guide, please reference the FunctionScript repository. :)

You can view services published by our large and growing developer community on the Standard Library search page.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started
2. Creating Your First Service
3. Connecting Service Endpoints
4. Accessing Your APIs From Other Applications
5. Accessing Your APIs Over HTTP
6. Running Your APIs as Background Workers
7. Version Control and Package Management
8. Logging
9. Sourcecode
10. Additional Functionality
11. Acknowledgements
12. Contact

Getting Started

To get started with Standard Library, first make sure you have Node 6.x installed, available from the official Node.js website. Next install the Standard Library CLI tools with:

$ npm install lib.cli -g

And you’re now ready to start building!

Upgrading From Previous Versions

If you’re running a previous version of Standard Library and having issues with the CLI, try cleaning up the old CLI binary links first;

$ rm /usr/local/bin/f
$ rm /usr/local/bin/lib
$ rm /usr/local/bin/stdlib

Creating Your First Service

The first thing you’ll want to do is create a workspace. Create a new directory you intend to build your services in and initialize the workspace.

$ mkdir stdlib-workspace
$ cd stdlib-workspace
$ lib init

You’ll be asked for an e-mail address to log in to the Standard Library registry. If you don’t yet have an account, you can create one by going to https://stdlib.com/. Note that you can skip account creation with lib init --no-login. You’ll be unable to use the registry, but it’s useful for creating workspaces when you don’t have internet access.

Next, create your service:

$ lib create <service>

You’ll be asked for a default function name, which is the entry point into your service (useful if you only want a single entry point). This will automatically generate a service project scaffold in stdlib-workspace/<username>/<service>.

Once created, enter the service directory:

$ cd your_username/your_service

In this directory, you’ll see something like:

- functions/
  - __main__.js
- package.json
- env.json
- WELCOME.md
- README.md

At this point, there’s a “hello world” function that’s been automatically created (__main__.js). Standard Library comes paired with a simple lib command for testing your functions locally and running them in the cloud. To test your function:

$ lib .
"hello world"

If we examine the functions/__main__.js file, we see the following:

/**
* A basic Hello World function
* @param {string} name Who you're saying hello to
* @returns {string}
*/
module.exports = async (name = 'world', context) => {
  return `hello ${name}`;
};

We can pass parameters to it using the CLI by specifying named parameters:

$ lib . --name "dolores abernathy"
"hello dolores abernathy"

Note that context is a magic parameter (automatically populated with execution details, when provided) as is callback (terminates execution), so these don’t need to be documented and can not be specified as parameters when executing the function.

Pushing to the Cloud

To push your function to a development environment in the cloud…

$ lib up dev
$ lib your_username.your_service[@dev]
"hello world"

And to release it (when you’re ready!)

$ lib release
$ lib your_username.your_service
"hello world"

You can check out your service on the web, and use it in applications using our functions gateway, api.stdlib.com.

https://your_username.api.stdlib.com/your_service/

That’s it! You haven’t written a line of code yet, and you have mastery over building a service, testing it in a development (staging) environment online, and releasing it for private (or public) consumption.

Note: By default, APIs that you publish with lib release will have a visible documentation page in the Standard Library public registry. You can keep your page private, as well as restrict execution access or add collaborators to your API, by modifying your API’s permissions. For more information, see this docs page.

Another Note: Staging environments (like the one created with lib up dev) are mutable and can be replaced indefinitely. Releases (lib release) are immutable and can never be overwritten. However, any service can be torn down with lib down <environment> or lib down -r <version> (but releases can’t be replaced once removed, to prevent mistakes and / or bad actors).

Connecting Service Endpoints

You’ll notice that you can create more than one function per service. While you can structure your project however you’d like internally, it should also be noted that these functions have zero-latency access to each other. You can access them internally with the lib package on NPM, which behaves similarly to the lib command for testing. Use:

$ npm install lib --save

In your main service directory to add it, and use it like so:

functions/add.js

module.exports = async (a = 0, b = 0) => {
  return a + b;
};

functions/add_double.js

const lib = require('lib');

module.exports = async (a = 0, b = 0, context) => {
  let result = await lib[`${context.service.identifier}.add`]({a: a, b: b});
  return result * 2;
};

In this case, calling lib .add --a 1 --b 2 will return 3 and lib .add_double --a 1 --b 2 will return 6. The context magic parameter is used for its context.service.identifier property, which will return the string "your_username.your_service[@local]" in the case of local execution, "your_username.your_service[@ENV]" when deployed to an environment or release (where ENV is your environment name or semver).

Accessing Your APIs From Other Applications

As mentioned in the previous section, you can use the NPM lib package that’s available on GitHub and NPM to access your APIs from legacy Node.js applications and even the web browser. We’ll have more SDKs coming out in the following months.

An existing app would call a function (username.bestTrekChar with version 0.2.1):

const lib = require('lib');

lib.username.bestTrekChar['@0.2.1']({name: 'spock'}, function (err, result) {

  if (err) {
    // handle it
  }

  // do something with result

});

Which would speak to your API…

module.exports = async (name = 'kirk') => {

  if (name === 'kirk') {
    return 'why, thank, you, too, kind';
  } else if (name === 'spock') {
    return 'i think this feeling is called "pleased"';
  } else {
    throw new Error('Only kirk and spock supported.');
  }

};

Accessing Your APIs Over HTTP

We definitely recommend using the lib library on NPM to make API calls as specified above, but you can also make HTTPS requests directly to the Standard Library gateway. HTTP query parameters are mapped automatically to parameters by name.

https://username.api.stdlib.com/liveService@1.12.2/?name=BATMAN

Maps directly to:

/**
* Hello World
* @param {string} name
* @returns {string}
*/
module.exports = async (name = 'world') => {
  // returns "HELLO BATMAN" from above HTTP query
  return `Hello ${name}`;
};

Running Your APIs as Background Workers

To run any Standard Library service as a background worker (immediately returns a response, runs function after), simply append “:bg” to the URL before the HTTP query parameters (search portion of the URL), for example (from above):

https://username.api.stdlib.com/liveService@1.12.2/:bg?name=BATMAN

To do so from the lib-node library, use:

lib({bg: true}).username.liveService['@1.12.2'](...);

Background Responses

The default background response will be a content type of text/plain with a string indicating the function name you’re executing. There are currently three different options for background responses that you define before you deploy your function.

info (DEFAULT)

Set @bg info in your comment definition like so:

/**
* Hello World
* @bg info
* @param {string} name
* @returns {string}
*/
module.exports = async (name = 'world') => {
  return `Hello ${name}`;
};

This is the default as well (if nothing is specified).

empty

Set @bg empty in your comment definition like so:

/**
* Hello World
* @bg empty
* @param {string} name
* @returns {string}
*/
module.exports = async (name = 'world') => {
  return `Hello ${name}`;
};

Will return an empty (0 length) response.

params

Set @bg params in your comment definition like so:

/**
* Hello World
* @bg params
* @param {string} name
* @returns {string}
*/
module.exports = async (name = 'world') => {
  return `Hello ${name}`;
};

This will return {"name":"world"} in this example (if no other parameters are specified) as this parameter has a default value. This will spit back any and all parameters sent to the function, even if they’re not part of the function signature.

Version Control and Package Management

A quick note on version control - Standard Library is not a replacement for normal git-based workflows, it is a supplement focused around service creation and execution.

You have unlimited access to any release (that hasn’t been torn down) with lib pkg <serviceIdentifier> to download the tarball (.tgz) and lib get <serviceIdentifier> to automatically download and unpack the tarball to a working directory.

Tarballs (and package contents) are closed-source. Nobody but you (and potentially your teammates) has access to these. It’s up to you whether or not you share the guts of your service with others on GitHub or NPM.

As mentioned above: releases are immutable and can not be overwritten (but can be removed, just not replaced afterwards) and development / staging environments are mutable, you can overwrite them as much as you’d like.

Logging

Logging for services is enabled by default. When running a service locally with lib . or lib .functionname, all logs will be output in your console. The very last output (normally a JSON-compatible string) is the return value of the function.

To view remote logs (in dev or release environments), use the following syntax:

:: Lists all logs for the service
$ lib logs username.servicename

:: Lists main service endpoint logs for "dev" environment
$ lib logs username.servicename[@dev]

:: Lists service endpoint named "test" logs for "dev" environment
$ lib logs username.servicename[@dev].test

:: Lists all logs for "dev" environment
$ lib logs username.servicename[@dev]*
$ lib logs username.servicename[@dev].*

The default log type is stdout, though you can specify stderr with lib logs username.servicename -t stderr.

Limit the number of lines to show with the -l argument (or --lines).

Sourcecode

Standard Library Sourcecode is designed to streamline the creation of different types of projects. Sources provide defaults for things like boilerplate code, workflows, and directory setup so you can get right to development and implementation of more complex functionality. You can create services from existing source codes, or create and share your own sources.

Installing A Service from Sourcecode

You can create a service from a source code directly from the command line. To create a service using a source code, navigate to a Standard Library root directory and run

$ lib create -s <source name>

Where <source name> is something like @slack/app with an optionally specified version or environment. This will create a new service based off the source code.

Creating Sources

To turn a existing service into a source code, navigate to the service and run

$ lib source

This will copy the current directory contents into a new folder and add a source.json file based off of the env.json file. To deploy a draft of the source code to the cloud, you can run

$ lib source:draft <draft environment name>

To publish a versioned, immutable source code to the registry you can run

$ lib source:publish

You can also fork an existing source code, that belongs to you, a teammate, or is publicly available with

$ lib source:fork -s <source name> -a <alias>

Which you can then modify and publish again under your own account. For more information about source codes, check out the docs

Additional Functionality

Standard Library comes packed with a bunch of other goodies - if your service goes down for any reason (the service platform is acting up), use lib restart. Similarly, as we roll out updates to the platform the builds we’re using on AWS Lambda may change. You can update your service to our latest build using lib rebuild. We may recommend this from time-to-time, so pay attention to e-mails and the community.

To see a full list of commands available for the CLI tools, type:

$ lib help

We’ve conveniently copy-and-pasted the output here for you to peruse;

* [all arguments converted to parameters]
	-b                   Execute as a Background Function
	-d                   Specify debug mode (prints Gateway logs)
	-t                   Specify a Library Token
	-w                   Specify a Webhook (Deprecated)
	--*                  all verbose flags converted to named keyword parameters

	Runs a Standard Library function, i.e. "lib user.service[@ver]" (remote) or "lib ." (local)

create [service]
	-d                   (DEPRECATED) Dev Mode - Specify another HTTP address for the Template Service (e.g. localhost:8170)
	-f                   Force command if not in root directory
	-n                   No login - don't require an internet connection
	-s                   Source - creates service from a Standard Library sourcecode
	-t                   (DEPRECATED) Template - a Standard Library service template to use
	-w                   Write over - overwrite the current directory contents
	--develop            (DEPRECATED) Dev Mode - Specify another HTTP address for the Template Service (e.g. localhost:8170)
	--force              Force command if not in root directory
	--no-login           No login - don't require an internet connection
	--source             Source - creates service from a Standard Library sourcecode
	--template           (DEPRECATED) Template - a stdlib service template to use
	--write-over         Write over - overwrite the current directory contents

	Creates a new (local) service

down [environment]
	-r                   Remove a release version (provide number)
	--release            Remove a release version (provide number)

	Removes Standard Library package from registry and cloud environment

function:create [name] [description] [param_1] [param_2] [...] [param_n]
	-n                   New directory: Create as a __main__.js file, with the name representing the directory
	--new                New directory: Create as a __main__.js file, with the name representing the directory

	Creates a new function for a service, locally

get [full service name]
	-f                   Force command if not in root directory
	-w                   Write over - overwrite the target directory contents
	--force              Force command if not in root directory
	--write-over         Write over - overwrite the target directory contents

	Retrieves and extracts Standard Library package

hosts
	Displays created hostname routes from source custom hostnames to target services you own

hosts:add [source] [target]
	Adds a new hostname route from a source custom hostname to a target service you own

hosts:remove [source]
	Removes a hostname route from a source custom hostname to a target service you own

http
	-p                   Port (default 8170)
	--port               Port (default 8170)

	Creates HTTP Server for Current Service

info [username | full service name]
	Retrieves information about a user or package

init [environment]
	-f                   Force command to overwrite existing workspace
	-n                   No login - don't require an internet connection
	--force              Force command to overwrite existing workspace
	--no-login           No login - don't require an internet connection

	Initializes Standard Library workspace

login
	--email              E-Mail
	--password           Password

	Logs in to Standard Library in this directory

logout
	Logs out of Standard Library in this workspace

logs [service]
	-l                   The number of log lines you want to retrieve
	-t                   The log type you want to retrieve. Allowed values are "stdout" and "stderr".
	--lines              The number of log lines you want to retrieve
	--type               The log type you want to retrieve. Allowed values are "stdout" and "stderr".

	Retrieves logs for a given service

pkg [full service name]
	-f                   Force command if not in root directory
	-o                   Output path for the .tgz package
	--force              Force command if not in root directory
	--output             Output path for the .tgz package

	Downloads Standard Library tarball (.tgz)

rebuild [environment]
	-r                   Rebuild a release package
	--release            Rebuild a release package

	Rebuilds a service (useful for registry performance updates), alias of `lib restart -b`

release
	Pushes release of Standard Library package to registry and cloud (Alias of `lib up -r`)

restart [environment]
	-b                   Rebuild service fully
	-r                   Restart a release package
	--build              Rebuild service fully
	--release            Restart a release package

	Restarts a Standard Library service (if necessary)

rollback
	Rolls back (removes) release of Standard Library package (alias of `lib down -r`)

source

	Converts a local service to Standard Library sourcecode by creating "source.json"

source:draft [draftName]
	-p                   Publishes as a release
	--publish            Publishes as a release

	Pushes a draft of Standard Library source code to the registry

source:fork
	-a                   Alias (Optional) - The new alias of the source
	-f                   Force command if not in root directory
	-i                   Install - install this sourcecode as a new library service
	-s                   Source (Required) - The name of the sourcecode to fork
	-w                   Write over - overwrite the target directory contents
	--alias              Alias (Optional) - The new alias of the source
	--force              Force command if not in root directory
	--install            Install - install this sourcecode as a new library service
	--source             Source (Required) - The name of the sourcecode to fork
	--write-over         Write over - overwrite the target directory contents

	Downloads and Forks Sourcecode from Standard Library

source:publish
	Publishes a versioned release of Standard Library sourcecode to registry (alias of `lib source:draft -p`)

source:remove [environment]
	-p                   Removes a published release version (provide number)
	--publish            Removes a published release version (provide number)

	Removes Standard Library sourcecode from the registry

tasks:create [service] [function]
	-v                   Service version (default lastest release)
	--version            Service version (default lastest release)

	Creates a Scheduled Task from a Standard Library service

tasks:destroy
	Stops a Standard Library scheduled task

tasks:list
	-j                   Returns tasks as a JSON object
	--json               Returns tasks as a JSON object

	Lists your scheduled tasks

up [environment]
	-r                   Upload a release package
	--release            Upload a release package

	Pushes Standard Library package to registry and cloud environment

user
	-s                   <key> <value> Sets a specified key-value pair
	--new-password       Sets a new password via a prompt
	--reset-password     <email> Sends a password reset request for the specified e-mail address
	--set                <key> <value> Sets a specified key-value pair

	Retrieves (and sets) current user information

version
	Returns currently installed version of Standard Library command line tools

That’s it!

Yep, it’s really that easy. To keep up-to-date on developments, please star us here on GitHub, and sign up a user account for the registry. You can read more about service hosting and keep track of official updates on the official Standard Library website, stdlib.com.

Acknowledgements

Standard Library is a product of and © 2019 Polybit Inc.

We’d love for you to pay attention to @StandardLibrary and what we’re building next! If you’d consider joining the team, shoot us an e-mail.

You can also follow me, the original author, on Twitter: @keithwhor.

Issues encouraged, PRs welcome, and we’re happy to have you on board! Enjoy and happy building :)

Thanks

Special thanks to the people and companies that have believed in and supported our vision and development over the years.

• Slack @SlackHQ
• Stripe @Stripe
• Romain Huet @romainhuet
• Chad Fowler @chadfowler
• Brian LeRoux @brianleroux
• Ahmad Nassri @AhmadNassri

… and many more!