Motivation

Middleware is a very powerful tool for building web backends. However, many frameworks encourage patterns we believe make understanding code more difficult. Additionally, functionality becomes tightly-coupled to a given framework.

At first glance, webroute takes a strange approach. However, if adhered to, end-devlopers are better off.

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@webroute/middleware takes a different approach to middleware.

Instead of allowing middleware to orchestrate the app (e.g. via next() calls) or secretly mutate state (e.g. req.user = user), our middleware is functional and softly immutable.

Instead of giving the middleware a reference to our app, we think the middleware should return what it wants to run. This inversion provides a handful of benefits.

Using this model, middleware becomes strongly-typed, highly customisable and decoupled from any framework. It's always clear what middleware does, which data it requires and produces, and what app-related side-effects it cause, like returning early.