Create a Runtime

An Injex runtime defines the functionality needed to load modules automatically on a specific environment (or runtime). As an example, the Node runtime defines the functionality to load modules for a Node application. As you may see, creating a new runtime is a simple task.

To create a new runtime, you'll need to inherit the Injex abstract class from the @injex/core package where most of the runtime functionality exists. All you need to do is implement two abstract functions, as you will see in a minute.

Implementation

First, you need to make sure @injex/core is installed as a dependency on your runtime project.

npm install --save @injex/core

Now, create a file named injex.ts and paste the following code

injex.ts
import { Injex, IContainerConfig } from "@injex/core";
export interface MyInjexRuntimeConfig extends IContainerConfig {
}
export default class MyInjexRuntime extends Injex<MyInjexRuntimeConfig> {
public static create(config?: MyInjexRuntimeConfig): MyInjexRuntime {
return new MyInjexRuntime(config);
}
protected abstract createConfig(config: Partial<MyInjexRuntimeConfig>): MyInjexRuntimeConfig {
}
protected abstract loadContainerFiles(): void {
}
}

You'll need to implement the createConfig() and the loadContainerFiles() abstract methods of the base Injex class.

createConfig()

This method will get the config argument passed to the static create method and should return the full configurations for this runtime with default values as a fallback.

Recommendation

The static create() method is not mandatory for the runtime to operate, but you want to implement it consistently with other runtimes.

A config interface should extend the IContainerConfig interface, as you can see in line 3.

Example from the Node runtime:

interface INodeContainerConfig extends Partial<IContainerConfig> {
rootDirs?: string[];
globPattern?: string;
}
protected createConfig(config: Partial<INodeContainerConfig>): INodeContainerConfig {
return {
logLevel: LogLevel.Error,
logNamespace: "Injex",
plugins: [],
rootDirs: [
resolve(process.cwd(), "./src")
],
globPattern: "/**/*.js",
...config
};
}

Lines 3-5 are fallback values for the base IContainerConfig interface, lines 6-9 are the fallback values for the INodeContainerConfig interface and in line 10 we merge with the user config argument.

loadContainerFiles()

The most important part of an Injex runtime is to load all module files in a project so Injex can scan those files for module definitions. You should call the registerModuleExports() internal method with the required file content.

Example from the Node runtime:

protected loadContainerFiles(): void {
this.config.rootDirs
.map((dir) => (this._throwIfRootDirNotExists(dir), getAllFilesInDir(dir, this.config.globPattern)))
.reduce((allFiles: string[], files: string[]) => allFiles.concat(files), [])
.forEach((filePath) => this.registerModuleExports(require(filePath)));
}

We load all files inside the rootDirs config with the node runtime, as shown in line 3. In line 5 we iterate and call the registerModuleExports() method for each file with the require(filePath) module as an argument, so Injex can scan it and look for module definitions.

IContainerConfig interface

export interface IContainerConfig {
logLevel?: LogLevel;
logNamespace?: string;
plugins?: IInjexPlugin[];
}

Exporting a runtime

For consistency, export the runtime container you created in the injex.ts file under the name Injex.

As an example, this is how the Node, Webpack and Vite runtimes are imported:

import { Injex } from "@injex/node";
Injex.create({ ... });

RECOMMENDATION

It's a good practice to go over the source code of an existing runtime before implementing yours. Injex's runtimes source code is located under the runtimes/ root folder inside Injex's GitHub repository.

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