Frontend: Scala.js and Laminar | Backend: Scala JVM and Http4s | Protocol: Smithy4s | Build system: Scala CLI and Vite | Packaging: Docker | Web server: NGINX
This is an opinionated fullstack scala template:
- The frontend-backend interaction layer is handled through Smithy4s protocol definition – this ensures shared modelling and keeps all definitions in sync, additionally allowing for code sharing between frontend and backend
- Scala CLI is used everywhere. While it doesn't have multi-module support
- NGINX is used as a web server. Using a very configurable and battle-tested server from the very beginning can help implementing more complicated features later as the app grows. We also use it to serve static assets separately from the JVM backend.
- Vite and TailwindCSS are used on the frontend. Bundling a CSS framework can be helpful to get the styling off the ground for people not usually involved in frontend design work.
- Frontend: Node.js and NPM, Scala CLI
- Backend: Scala CLI
- Protocol code: Coursier, Scala CLI
Scala CLI doesn't have any support for multi-module projects, so to make sure we can work with this codebase in Metals we need to generate BSP definitions manually.
- Run
make setup-ideand then cross your fingers that Metals will pick everything up correctly
- Make changes to
shared/protocol.smithy - Run
make smithy4s - This will regenerate all the code that can be used by both backend and frontend
- Run
make run-frontend - Note that to perform any actions that execute API calls, you need to have backend running as well
- Run
make run-backend - This will run the backend server on port 9999 – which is where Vite's frontend tooling expects it to be
- Run
make docker - Note that this project is organised as a self-contained docker image - just running
docker build .will produce a working docker image. This is particularly useful for services like Fly.io which detect a Dockerfile and can build and deploy app directly from it