11 KiB
Modular Development with the Azure SDK
STATUS: In Progress
Currently, the Azure SDK for JavaScript supports a class-based approach to creating Azure service clients. This had the advantage of being able to easily identify capabilities of that package.
Pros of this approach includes:
- Pattern follows all other languages
- Easy discovery of package capabilities through the *Client class.
- Minimal number of import statements
There are cons to this approach as we consider bringing the JavaScript clients into the browser and service workers where bundle sizes count whether our customers use us or not. This is especially important as we look at new opportunities such as Web Push which would use a bit of the code from Notification Hubs.
- Large index files to export everything.
- Not as easily tree shakable to produce smaller bundle sizes.
- Many methods on the client will never be used, thus taking up valuable space.
Modular Design
We can create a more ala carte experience where the customer only pulls in the methods they need. With the Azure SDK for JavaScript, we can create a client previously using the ServiceClient
pattern:
import { NotificationHubsClient } from "@azure/notification-hubs";
const client = new NotificationHubsClient("<connection-string>", "<hub-name>");
const registrationId = await client.createRegistrationId();
For a more modular design, we have a ServiceClient exposed as an interface with the minimal amount of things to communicate with the backend, and then this is passed into each method.
import { createClientContext, createRegistrationId } from "@azure/notification-hubs/api";
const context = createClientContext("<connection-string>", "<hub-name>");
const registrationId = await createRegistrationId(context);
The pros of this design are as follows:
- Fine grained exports to only give the customer what they need
- Smaller bundle sizes the customer for exports.
- Tree shaking is easier for bundlers.
The cons of the modular design is the following:
- Large index files to export everything.
Solution
The goals of enabling both the class based ServiceClient
and modular development are the following:
- Do not introduce breaking changes
- Keep the existing CommonJS compatibility.
- Do not pollute the top level index with all exports, keeping the top level index.ts as is
- Expose exports at "namespaces" or export subpaths
Subpath Exports
To accomplish this goal, we will use subpath exports which have been available since Node.js version 12.7. This way, we can specify which files are exposed at which path to make a better experience for importing modules and not clutter the main index.ts
file.
Node added the following support for subpath exports in the following versions:
v12.20.0
- Subpath"exports"
patternsv12.16.0
- Unflag self-referencing a package using its namev12.7.0
- Introduce"exports"
package.json field as a more powerful alternative to the classic"main"
fieldv12.0.0
- Add support for ES modules using.js
file extension viapackage.json
"type"
field.
For subpaths, we can specify the path which is either a path or a wildcard path. Inside the path, we can specify following:
types
- The TypeScript types for that pathrequire
- Common JS entry pointimport
- ES Modules entry point
For example, we could have our client and associated methods exposed as @azure/notification-hubs/api
and our models at @azure/notification-hubs/models
.
"exports": {
".": {
"types": "./types/src/index.js",
"require": "./dist/index.js",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/index.js"
},
"./api": {
"types": "./types/src/api/index.js",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/api/index.js"
},
"./models": {
"types": "./types/src/models/index.d.ts",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/models/index.js"
}
},
Then we could import those modules as the following:
import { createClientContext, createOrUpdateInstallation } from "@azure/notification-hubs/api";
import { createAppleInstallation } from "@azure/notification-hubs/models";
Note the main exports of .
can expose both ES-Modules and CommonJS such as the following:
"exports": {
".": {
"types": "./types/src/index.js",
"require": "./dist/index.js",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/index.js"
}
},
This approach has a number of benefits:
- Does not pollute the top level index to export the world.
- Can support both class-based
ServiceClient
and modular development separately. - Allows the SDK Team to ship experimental/beta features through its own subpath.
Customer onboarding to Azure SDK with Subpath Support
First and foremost, we do not want to break the customers so they can continue to use their existing class-based ServiceClient
approach. To enable subpaths is an opt-in process by the customer.
- Use Node.js 12.20+
- Upgrade to TypeScript 4.7 and above
- Update the
tsconfig.json
to use"moduleResolution"
to"Node16"
or"NodeNext"
NOTE: If the customer wishes to use the api
and models
subpaths, then the customer must update the package.json
to set the "type"
to be "module"
as we currently do not export CommonJS individual files outside of the main index.js.
Azure SDK Subpath Conventions
The standard for Azure SDKs going forward is the following:
.
- Still expose all things at the top level exports for CommonJS and ES-Modules./api
- The client context and single method exports/models
- The models and factories
For packages that may have multiple service clients, each service client will be then put in a folder to itself, such as the following if we have an Admin
client and a Messaging
client.
/admin/api
- The Admin client context and single method exports/admin/models
- The Admin models and factories/messaging/api
- The Messaging client context and single method exports/messaging/models
- The Messaging models and factories
The standard approach should be to expose each public method on a ServiceClient
as its own standalone function export. The modular approach should create an interface which contains the minimal set of data to talk to the backend and expose through a factory method to create.
The ServiceClient
should be exposed at the top level through the exports which will then take the place of our current "main"
entry point in the package.json
for both CommonJS and ES Modules.
".": {
"types": "./types/src/index.js",
"require": "./dist/index.js",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/index.js"
},
By default, the client communication should be exposed through the api
subpath with the client context via createClientContext
and all associated API methods. All single methods should be exported on the api/index.js
file.
"./api": {
"types": "./types/src/api/index.d.ts",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/api/index.js"
}
This could then be imported such as the following:
import { createClient, createOrUpdateInstallation } from "@azure/notification-hubs/api";
For models and their associated factory functions should be in a models
subpath. The models are then exported via the models/index.js
file.
"./models": {
"types": "./types/src/models/index.d.ts",
"import": "./dist-esm/src/models/index.js"
}
This could then be imported such as the following:
import { Installation, createAppleInstallation } from "@azure/notification-hubs/models";
Shipping Experimental Features
Another aspect of this design is to allow us to ship experimental features with modular development. We can ship preview features in either experimental
or preview
subpath exports which allow us to ship features that do not collide with our top level exports nor our standard APIs. Once these features have been approved for GA, they will be removed from the experimental
or preview
subpath.
Onboarding Azure SDK Packages to Subpath Exports
The following are the steps required for supporting subpath exports in our packages.
Changes to package.json
To support subpath exports, the package.json
requires the following changes.
-
TypeScript must be upgraded to version 4.7 or later such as
"typescript": "^4.7.2",
-
The
type
should be set tomodule
. -
The
files
array must containtypes/src
to support individual file types."files": [ "dist/", "dist-esm/src/", "types/src", "types/latest/", "types/3.1/", "README.md", "LICENSE" ],
-
The
exports
must be specified for the top level export as well as subpaths. Wildcards or absolute paths can be specified."exports": { ".": { "types": "./types/src/index.d.ts", "require": "./dist/index.js", "import": "./dist-esm/src/index.js" }, "./api": { "types": "./types/src/api/index.d.ts", "import": "./dist-esm/src/api/index.js" }, "./models": { "types": "./types/src/models/index.d.ts", "import": "./dist-esm/src/models/index.js" } },
Changes to tsconfig.json
The TypeScript configuration tsconfig.json
must also be updated with the following changes:
- Update the
module
setting to eitherNodeNext
orNode16
. - Update the
moduleResolution
setting to eitherNodeNext
orNode16
. - In some cases,the compiler needed
rootDir
set, so updaterootDir
to be"."
.
Source Code Changes
In order to import files in the module system, we will need to update our import statements to include the .js
extension.
Previously, we imported files such as the following:
import { isDefined } from "./utils";
And now we must specify the .js
extension.
import { isDefined } from "./utils.js";
Design Considerations
To support this in our packages, we should think about how we support a hybrid pattern between the two worlds of modular design and class-based ServiceClient
design.
Hybrid Design
For design considerations and code re-use, we could deploy a hybrid solution to this problem by using the single method exports and still expose the existing ServiceClient
which simply acts as a proxy to the the underlying method.
import { NotificationHubsClientContext, createClientContext, createRegistrationId } from "@azure/notification-hubs/api";
export class NotificationHubsServiceClient {
private _context: NotificationHubsClientContext;
constructor(connectionString: string, hubName: string, options: NotificationHubClientOptions) {
this._context = createClientContext(connectionString, hubName, options);
}
createRegistrationId(options: OperationOptions = {}) {
return createRegistrationMethod(this._context, options);
}
}
Follow On Work
With this approach the following functions still work as expected:
- CI
- Linting
To support subpath exports in our own tools, we will need updates to the following:
- API-Extractor Allow for multiple entry points instead of a single entry point for creating an API export
- API View Show code in subpaths much like namespaces/packages in other languages such as C# and Java
- Code Generation Generate the modular design of single method exports and then create ServiceClients from the modular methods