Version 2

Updated on June 19, 2020.

This issue provides an overview of the next version of Foal TS. It will be released between June and August 2020.

The purpose of this release is not to add many new features, which are regularly added in minor versions, but to fix issues and hacks that require some break changes. It will also remove unused and deprecated components and make parts of the framework simpler and more intuitive.

Changes & New Features

✅ = Implemented

1. Developper experience (CLI) ✅

Migrations and shell scripts are not developper friendly when developping (#494). There are too many CLI commands and it is not intuitive to know which one to use and in which order.

In version 2, the files tsconfig.migrations.json and tsconfig.scripts.json will be removed and the CLI commands will be reduced and simplified.

More details here: #684.

Examples

Build, make and run migrations

# Version 1
npm run build:app
npm run migration:generate -- -n my_migration
npm run build:migrations
npm run migration:run

# Version 2
npm run makemigrations
npm run migrations

Build migrations, scripts and the app

# Version 1
npm run build:app
npm run build:scripts
npm run build:migrations

# Version 2
npm run build

2. Authentication with sessions ✅

Authentication with sessions is complicated and requires a lot of code. Current implementation also prevents the framework from adding new features (#525, #521, #510).

In version 2, the authentication system with sessions will be greatly simplified.

See #799.

3. Schema references in validation hooks ✅

It is not possible to use references (especially OpenAPI references) in validation hooks.

In version 2, this will be fixed.

More details here: #552.

Example

const productSchema = {
  // ...
}

@ApiDefineSchema('product', productSchema)
@ValidateBody({
  $ref: '#/components/schemas/product'
})

4. Service initialization ✅

Services can be initialized using their boot method. For this to work, we currently need to call ServicesManager.boot() in src/index.ts.

In version 2, this feature will be enabled by default. No need to call ServicesManager.boot() anymore.

5. Accessing file metadata during uploading ✅

When uploading a file, we have only access to its content (#673).

In version 2, we will also have access to its file size, mime type and original file name.

6. Safer configuration ✅

Current Config.get function has several faults (#496).

In version 2, it will be replaced with the new Config.get2 added in v1.7.

// Version 1 
const port = Config.get<number>('settings.port', 3000);
const port = Config.get<number>('settings.port');

// Version 2
const port = Config.get('settings.port', 'number', 3000);
const port = Config.getOrThrow('settings.port', 'number')

7. Improve the naming of JWT settings ✅

Version 1: settings.jwt.secretOrPublicKey

Version 2: settings.jwt.secret, settings.jwt.publicKey

8. Remove support of Mongoose ✅

Mongoose brought many problems in the past while maintaining the framework. It takes time to maintain it and it is also not typed and does not seem to be used by FoalTS users: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@foal/mongoose.

FoalTS will no longer provide Mongoose tools starting from v2 (i.e. CLI code generation and the fetchUser function). Users will still be able to use it "by hand" if they wish.

9. Improve the configuration system ✅

See #805, #497.

10. Simplify the management of custom errors thrown in controllers and hooks ✅

See #638 (comment).

Cleanup ✅

• Remove the outdated and useless security headers.
• Remove the PermissionDenied and ObjectDoesNotExist which are unused and do not appear in the documentation.
• Remove the object ValidationError and the function validate which are unused and do not bring value to the framework.
• Remove the deprecated function createHttpResponseFile and use Disk.createHttpResponseFile instead. Once done, remove the package mime from @foal/core dependencies.
• Remove the package @foal/formidable and use the @ValidateMultipartFormDataBody hook instead.
• Remove the deprecated legacy option of the functions hashPassword and verifyPassword. This option was used in very old versions of Foal when no one was using the framework.
• Remove the deprecated package @foal/ejs and the possibility to create FoalTS template engines. Only Express templates engines will be allowed (Twig, EJS, pug, etc).
• Drop the support of Node 8 and run tests on Node 12 and 14. Version 8 of Node is not maintained anymore. Uninstall pump in @foal/core, @foal/storage and @foal/aws-s3 and use the pipeline function from the standard library (added in Node 10).
• Remove the unused command foal g sub-app.
• Check if password hashing needs an update (OWASP).
• Make createApp return a promise and remove createAndInitApp. The function createAndInitApp was introduced because we needed to return a promise.

  // Before
  const app = createApp();
  const app = await createAndInitApp();
  
  // After
  const app = await createApp();

• Only allow one way to pass a custom express instance to createApp.

  // Before
  const expressInstance = express();
  const app = createApp(expressInstance);
  // OR
  const app = createApp({ expressInstance });
  
  // After
  const expressInstance = express();
  const app = createApp({ expressInstance });

Upgrading Dependencies

• @foal/graphql
  • graphql@15.0