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Biff
A web framework + self-hosted deployment solution for Clojure

Introduction

Biff is designed to make web development with Clojure fast and easy, especially for early stage startups and hobby projects. Over time I'd like to make it suitable for apps that need scale as well. I use it in production for Findka, my startup. It is currently alpha quality and may have breaking changes.

I started writing Biff after 18 months of experimenting with various web technologies like Firebase, Datomic and several Clojure web frameworks/libraries. It includes:

Also: instead of trying to do everything for everyone, Biff is designed to be easy to take apart (without forking). This should help mitigate the main drawback of frameworks, which is that it's often less work in the long run to just stitch the libraries together yourself.

Resources

Contributing

For hacking on Biff, change the example project's dependency to :local/root "..". PRs welcome, but I recommend contacting me on #biff first.

Getting started

Note: As of 19 Oct, the ./task dev command below is broken due to a bug in tools.deps. I'll update these docs with a workaround soon.

The fastest way to get started with Biff is by cloning the Github repo and running the official example project (an implementation of Tic Tac Toe):

  1. Install dependencies: Clojure, NPM.
  2. git clone https://github.com/jacobobryant/biff
  3. cd biff/example
  4. ./task setup
  5. ./task dev
  6. Go to localhost:9630 and start the app build.
  7. Go to localhost:8080

Note: if you're on Windows/don't have Bash, you'll need to run the commands inside task individually (translated to whatever shell you're using). Also, you may need to install this package (see facebook/rocksdb#2531).

You can tinker with this app and use it as a template for your own projects. See Production when you want to deploy.

Build system

The example project uses tools.deps, Shadow CLJS, and Overmind. task is the main entrypoint:

task
#!/bin/bash
set -e

setup () {
  which clj npm > /dev/null # Assert dependencies
  npm install # Or `npm init; npm install --save-dev shadow-cljs; npm install --save react react-dom`
}

dev () {
  clj -Sresolve-tags
  BIFF_ENV=dev clj -A:cljs "$@" -m biff.core
}

...

"$@"

You can easily add new build tasks by creating new functions in task. Also, I recommend putting alias t='./task' in your .bashrc.

./task dev will fetch the latest Biff version for you (via clj -Sresolve-tags). To update Biff, remove the :sha "..." key from deps.edn and run ./task dev again.

Backend entrypoint

When you run clj -m biff.core, Biff searches the classpath for plugins and then starts them in a certain order. To define a plugin, you must set ^:biff metadata on a namespace and then set a components var to a list of plugin objects in that namespace:

src/example/core.clj
(ns ^:biff example.core
  (:require
    [biff.system]
    [clojure.pprint :refer [pprint]]
    [example.handlers]
    [example.routes]
    [example.rules]
    [example.static]
    [example.triggers]))

(defn send-email [opts]
  (pprint [:send-email opts]))

(defn start-example [sys]
  (-> sys
    (merge #:example.biff.auth{:send-email send-email
                               :on-signup "/signin/sent/"
                               :on-signin-request "/signin/sent/"
                               :on-signin-fail "/signin/fail/"
                               :on-signin "/app/"
                               :on-signout "/"})
    (merge #:example.biff{:routes example.routes/routes
                          :static-pages example.static/pages
                          :event-handler #(example.handlers/api % (:?data %))
                          :rules example.rules/rules
                          :triggers example.triggers/triggers})
    (biff.system/start-biff 'example)))

(def components
  [{:name :example/core
    :requires [:biff/init]
    :required-by [:biff/web-server]
    :start start-example}])

:biff/init and :biff/web-server are plugins defined in the biff.core namespace. The :requires and :required-by values are used to start plugins in the right order. You can think of plugins kind of like Ring middleware. They receive a system map and pass along a modified version of it.

biff.system/start-biff starts a Biff app. That includes initializing:

If you connect to nrepl port 7888, you can access the system with @biff.core/system. Biff provides some helper functions for repl-driven development:

(biff.core/stop)
(biff.core/start)
(biff.core/refresh) ; stops, reloads namespaces from filesystem, starts.

Configuration

App-specific configuration can go in your plugin, as shown above. For example, we set :example.biff.auth/on-signin so that clients will be redirected to /app/ after they sign in successfully.

Environment-specific configuration and secrets can go in config.edn. They will be read in by the :biff/init plugin.

config.edn
{:prod {; If you set jdbc credentials, remove this file from source control!
        :biff.crux.jdbc/dbname "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/user "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/password "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/host "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/port ...
        :example.biff/host "example.com"
        :example.mailgun/api-key "..."}
 :dev {:inherit [:prod]
       :biff/dev true
       :example.biff/host "localhost"}}

The system map is mostly flat, with namespaced keys. For example, Biff configuration for the example app is stored under the :example.biff namespace. You could run multiple Biff apps in the same process by using a different namespace, e.g. (biff.system/start-biff sys 'another-app). Keys under the :biff namespace (e.g. :biff/dev from config.edn above) will become defaults for all Biff apps.

Similarly, the return values from biff.system/start-biff will be namespaced. For example, you can get the Crux node in our example app with (:example.biff/node @biff.core/system).

When the :biff/init plugin reads in your config.edn file, it will merge the nested maps according to the current environment and the value of :inherit. The default environment is :prod. This can be overridden by setting the BIFF_ENV environment variable:

BIFF_ENV=dev clj -m biff.core

Here is a complete list of configuration options and their default values. See the following sections for a deeper explanation.

Note: :foo/* is used to denote all keywords prefixed by :foo/ or :foo..

; === Config for the :biff/init plugin ===

:biff.init/start-nrepl true
:biff.init/nrepl-port 7888
:biff.init/start-shadow false
:biff.init/instrument false ; Calls orchestra.spec.test/instrument if true.
:biff.init/timbre true
:timbre/* ...               ; If :biff.init/timbre is true, these keys are passed to
                            ; taoensso.timbre/merge-config! (without the timbre prefix).
:biff/dev false ; When true, sets the following config options (overriding any specified values):
                ; {:biff.init/start-shadow true
                ;  :biff.init/start-nrepl false} ; shadow-cljs has its own nrepl server.

; === Config for biff.system/start-biff ===
; Note: app-ns is the second parameter in biff.system/start-biff

; REQUIRED
:biff/host nil          ; The hostname this app will be served on, e.g. "example.com" for prod
                        ; or "localhost" for dev.

; RECOMMENDED
:biff/static-pages nil  ; A map from paths to Rum data structures, e.g.
                        ; {"/hello/" [:html [:body [:p {:style {:color "red"}} "hello"]]]}
:biff/rules nil         ; An authorization rules data structure.
:biff/fn-whitelist nil  ; Collection of fully-qualified function symbols to allow in
                        ; Crux queries sent from the frontend. Functions in clojure.core
                        ; need not be qualified. For example: '[map? example.core/frobulate]
:biff/triggers nil      ; A database triggers data structure.
:biff/routes nil        ; A vector of Reitit routes.
:biff/event-handler nil ; A Sente event handler function.

:biff.auth/send-email nil ; A function.
:biff.auth/on-signup nil  ; Redirect route, e.g. "/signup/success/".
:biff.auth/on-signin-request nil
:biff.auth/on-signin-fail nil
:biff.auth/on-signin nil
:biff.auth/on-signout nil

; Ignored if :biff.crux/topology isn't :jdbc.
:biff.crux.jdbc/dbname nil
:biff.crux.jdbc/user nil
:biff.crux.jdbc/password nil
:biff.crux.jdbc/host nil
:biff.crux.jdbc/port nil

:biff.handler/spa-path nil ; If set, takes precedence over not-found-path (and sets http
                           ; status to 200).

:biff/dev false ; When true, sets the following config options (overriding any specified values):
                ; {:biff/using-proxy false
                ;  :biff.crux/topology :standalone
                ;  :biff.handler/secure-defaults false
                ;  :biff.static/root-dev "www-dev"}

; OPTIONAL
:biff.crux/topology :jdbc ; One of #{:jdbc :standalone}
:biff.crux/storage-dir "data/{{app-ns}}/crux-db" ; Directory to store Crux files.
:biff.crux.jdbc/* ...     ; Passed to crux.api/start-node (without the biff prefix) if
                          ; :biff.crux/topology is :jdbc. In this case, you must set
                          ; :biff.crux.jdbc/{user,password,host,port}.
:biff.crux.jdbc/dbtype "postgresql"

:biff.static/root "www/{{value of :biff/host}}" ; Directory from which to serve static files.
:biff.static/root-dev nil                       ; An additional static file directory.
:biff.static/resource-root "www/{{app-ns}}"     ; Resource directory where static files are stored.

:biff.handler/not-found-path "{{value of :biff.static/root}}/404.html"
:biff.handler/secure-defaults true ; Whether to use ring.middleware.defaults/secure-site-defaults
                                   ; or just site-defaults.

:biff/using-proxy (not= {{value of :biff/host}} "localhost") ; Used for setting :biff/base-url.


; === Config for the :biff/web-server plugin ===

:biff.web/host->handler ... ; Set by biff.system/start-biff. A map used to dispatch Ring
                            ; requests. For example:
                            ; {"localhost" (constantly {:status 200 ...})
                            ;  "example.com" (constantly {:status 200 ...})}
:biff.web/host "localhost"  ; Host for the web server to listen on. localhost is used in prod
                            ; because requests are proxied through Nginx.
:biff.web/port 8080         ; Port for the web server to listen on. Also used in
                            ; biff.system/start-biff.
:biff/dev false ; When true, sets the following config options (overriding any specified values):
                ; {:biff.web/host "0.0.0.0"}

The following keys are added to the system map by biff.system/start-biff:

biff.system/start-biff merges the system map into incoming Ring requests and Sente events. It also adds :biff/db (a Crux DB value) on each new request/event. Note that the keys will be prefixed just before start-biff returns—so within a request/event handler, you'd use :biff/node to get the Crux node, but within a subsequent Biff plugin you'd use e.g. :example.biff/node.

Static resources

Relevant config:

:biff/static-pages nil  ; A map from paths to Rum data structures, e.g.
                        ; {"/hello/" [:html [:body [:p "hello"]]]}

:biff.static/root "www/{{value of :biff/host}}" ; Directory from which to serve static files.
:biff.static/root-dev nil                       ; An additional static file directory.
:biff.static/resource-root "www/{{app-ns}}"     ; Resource directory where static files are stored.

:biff/dev false ; When true, sets the following config options (overriding any specified values):
                ; {:biff.static/root-dev "www-dev"
                ;  ...}

Biff will copy your static resources to www/yourwebsite.com/ (i.e. the value of :biff.static/root). In production, www/ is a symlink to /var/www/ and is served directly by Nginx (so static files will be served even if your JVM process goes down, e.g. during deployment). In development, the JVM process will serve files from that directory.

Biff gets static resources from two places. First, it will render HTML files from the value of :biff/static-pages on startup.

src/example/static.clj
(ns example.static
  (:require
    [rum.core :as rum]))

(def signin-form
  (rum/fragment
    [:p "Email address:"]
    [:form {:action "/api/signin-request" :method "post"}
     [:input {:name "email" :type "email" :placeholder "Email"}]
     [:button {:type "submit"} "Sign up/Sign in"]]))

(def home
  [:html
   [:head
    [:meta {:charset "utf-8"}]
    [:script {:src "/js/ensure-signed-out.js"}]]
   [:body
    signin-form]])

(def signin-sent
  [:html [:head [:meta {:charset "utf-8"}]]
   [:body
    [:p "Sign-in link sent, please check your inbox."]
    [:p "(Just kidding: click on the sign-in link that was printed to the console.)"]]])

(def signin-fail
  [:html [:head [:meta {:charset "utf-8"}]]
   [:body
    [:p "Invalid sign-in token."]
    signin-form]])

(def app
  [:html
   [:head
    [:meta {:charset "utf-8"}]
    [:script {:src "/js/ensure-signed-in.js"}]]
   [:body
    [:#app "Loading..."]
    [:script {:src "/cljs/app/main.js"}]]])

(def not-found
  [:html [:head [:meta {:charset "utf-8"}]]
   [:body
    [:p "Not found."]]])

(def pages
  {"/" home
   "/signin/sent/" signin-sent
   "/signin/fail/" signin-fail
   "/app/" app
   "/404.html" not-found})

Second, Biff will look for files in the resource directory specified by :biff.static/resource-root.

biff/example $ tree resources/
resources/
└── www
    └── example
        └── js
            ├── ensure-signed-in.js
            └── ensure-signed-out.js

I currently commit generated resources (except for HTML files, but including CLJS compilation output) to the git repo. If you prefer, you can easily add initialization code to your app that instead generates the resources during deployment (or downloads them from a CI server).

I'd like to add a CDN integration eventually.

Authentication

Relevant config:

:biff.auth/send-email nil ; A function.
:biff.auth/on-signup nil  ; Redirect route, e.g. "/signup/success/".
:biff.auth/on-signin-request nil
:biff.auth/on-signin-fail nil
:biff.auth/on-signin nil
:biff.auth/on-signout nil

Biff currently provides email link authentication (i.e. the user clicks a link in an email to sign in). Password and SSO authentication are on the roadmap.

Biff provides a set of HTTP endpoints for authentication:

Sign up

Sends the user an email with a sign-in link. The token included in the link will expire after 30 minutes. Redirects to the value of :biff.auth/on-signup.

HTTP Request

POST /api/signup

Form Parameters

Parameter Description
email The user's email address.

Example Usage

[:p "Email address:"]
[:form {:action "/api/signup" :method "post"}
 [:input {:name "email" :type "email" :placeholder "Email"}]
 [:button {:type "submit"} "Sign up"]]

The :biff.auth/send-email function will be called with the following options:

(send-email (merge
              ring-request
              {:to "alice@example.com"
               :template :biff.auth/signup
               :data {:biff.auth/link "https://example.com/api/signin?token=..."}}))

You will have to provide a send-email function which generates an email from the template data and sends it. (The example app just prints the template data to the console). If you use Mailgun, you can do something like this:

(def templates
  {:biff.auth/signup
   (fn [{:keys [biff.auth/link to]}]
     {:subject "Thanks for signing up"
      :html (rum.core/render-static-markup
              [:div
               [:p "We received a request to sign up with Findka using this email address."]
               [:p [:a {:href link} "Click here to sign up."]]
               [:p "If you did not request this link, you can ignore this email."]])})
   :biff.auth/signin ...})

(defn send-email* [api-key opts]
  (http/post (str "https://api.mailgun.net/v3/mail.example.com/messages")
    {:basic-auth ["api" api-key]
     :form-params (assoc opts :from "Example <contact@mail.example.com>")}))

(defn send-email [{:keys [to text template data api-key] :as opts}]
  (if (some? template)
    (if-some [template-fn (get templates template)]
      (send-email* api-key
        (assoc (template-fn (assoc data :to to)) :to to))
      (println "Email template not found:" template))
    (send-email* api-key (select-keys opts [:to :subject :text :html]))))

(defn start-example [{:keys [example.mailgun/api-key] :as sys}]
  (-> sys
    (merge
      {:example.biff.auth/send-email #(send-email (assoc % :api-key api-key))
       ...})
    (biff.system/start-biff 'example.biff)))

Dealing with bots

The above example is susceptible to abuse from bots. An account isn't created until the user clicks the confirmation link, but it's better not to send emails to bots/spam victims in the first place. You'll need to use your own method for deciding if signups come from bots. The map passed to send-email includes the Ring request specifically so you can check the form parameters and make that decision.

If you render the login form with JS, you may not need to deal with this for a while. If you render it statically (like in the example app), you'll have to deal with it sooner.

Request sign-in

Sends the user an email with a sign-in link. This is the same as Sign up, except:

Sign in

Verifies the given JWT and adds a :uid key to the user's session (expires in 90 days). Also sets a :csrf cookie, the value of which must be included in the X-CSRF-Token header for any HTTP requests that require authentication.

If this is the first sign in, creates a user document in Crux with the email and a random UUID.

Redirects to the value of :biff.auth/on-signin (or :biff.auth/on-signin-fail if the token is incorrect or expired).

HTTP Request

GET /api/signin

URL Parameters

Parameter Description
token A JWT

Example Usage

This endpoint is used by the link generated by Sign up and Request sign-in, so you typically won't need to generate a link for this endpoint yourself. However, if you'd like to use a longer expiration date for the token or authenticate at a custom endpoint, you can do it like so:

(trident.jwt/url {:url (str (:biff/base-url sys) "/api/unsubscribe")
                  :claims {:email "alice@example.com"
                           :uid "abc123"}
                  :jwt-secret (biff.auth/jwt-key sys)
                  :iss "example"
                  :expires-in (* 60 60 24 7 4)})

; Or for just the token:
(trident.jwt/mint {:secret (biff.auth/jwt-key sys)
                   :iss "example"
                   :expires-in (* 60 60 24 7 4)}
                  {:email "alice@example.com"
                   :uid "abc123"})

After a user is signed in, you can authenticate them on the backend from an event/request handler like so:

(defn handler [{:keys [session/uid biff/db]}]
  (if (some? uid)
    (prn (crux.api/entity db {:user/id uid}))
    ; => {:crux.db/id {:user/id #uuid "..."}
    ;     :user/id #uuid "..." ; duplicated for query convenience
    ;     :user/email "alice@example.com"}
    (println "User not authenticated.")))

Sign out

Clears the user's session and :csrf cookie. Redirects to the value of :biff.auth/on-signout.

See #26.

HTTP Request

GET /api/signout

Example Usage

[:a {:href "/api/signout"} "sign out"]

Check if signed in

Returns status 200 if the user is authenticated, else 403.

See #26.

HTTP Request

GET /api/signed-in

Example Usage

Include this on your landing page:

resources/www/example/js/ensure-signed-out.js
fetch("/api/signed-in").then(response => {
  if (response.status == 200) {
    document.location = "/app";
  }
});

Include this on your app page:

resources/www/example/js/ensure-signed-in.js
fetch("/api/signed-in").then(response => {
  if (response.status != 200) {
    document.location = "/";
  }
});

Client/server communication

Relevant config:

:biff/routes nil           ; A vector of Reitit routes.
:biff/event-handler nil    ; A Sente event handler function.
:biff.handler/not-found-path "{{value of :biff.static/root}}/404.html"
:biff.handler/spa-path nil ; If set, takes precedence over not-found-path (and sets http
                           ; status to 200).
:biff.handler/secure-defaults true ; Whether to use ring.middleware.defaults/secure-site-defaults
                                   ; or just site-defaults.
:biff/dev false            ; When true, sets the following config options (overriding any
                           ; specified values):
                           ; {:biff.handler/secure-defaults false}

HTTP

The value of :biff/routes will be wrapped with some default middleware which, among other things:

src/example/routes.clj
(ns example.routes
  (:require
    [trident.util :as u]
    ...))

(defn echo [req]
  {:headers/Content-Type "application/edn"
   :body (prn-str
           (merge
             (select-keys req [:params :body-params])
             (u/select-ns req 'params)))})

(def routes
  [["/echo" {:get echo
             :post echo
             :name ::echo}]
   ...])

$ curl -XPOST localhost:8080/echo?foo=1 -F bar=2
{:params {:foo "1", :bar "2"}, :params/bar "2", :params/foo "1"}
$ curl -XPOST localhost:8080/echo -d '{:foo 1}' -H "Content-Type: application/edn"
{:params {}, :body-params {:foo 1}}

For endpoints that require authentication, you must wrap anti-forgery middleware. Also, be sure not to make any GET endpoints that require authentication as these bypass anti-forgery checks.

src/example/routes.clj
(ns example.routes
  (:require
    [biff.http :as bhttp]
    [crux.api :as crux]
    [ring.middleware.anti-forgery :as anti-forgery]))

...

(defn whoami [{:keys [session/uid biff/db]}]
  (if (some? uid)
    {:body (:user/email (crux/entity db {:user/id uid}))
     :headers/Content-Type "text/plain"}
    {:status 401
     :headers/Content-Type "text/plain"
     :body "Not authorized."}))

(defn whoami2 [{:keys [session/uid biff/db]}]
  {:body (:user/email (crux/entity db {:user/id uid}))
   :headers/Content-Type "text/plain"})

(def routes
  [...
   ["/whoami" {:post whoami
               :middleware [anti-forgery/wrap-anti-forgery]
               :name ::whoami}]
   ; Same as whoami
   ["/whoami2" {:post whoami2
                :middleware [bhttp/wrap-authorize]
                :name ::whoami2}]])

When calling these endpoints, you must include the value of the csrf cookie in the X-CSRF-Token header:

(cljs-http.client/post "/whoami" {:headers {"X-CSRF-Token" (biff.client/csrf)}})
; => {:status 200, :body "alice@example.com", ...}

However, communicating over websockets is usually more convenient, in which case this is unnecessary.

Web sockets

Web sockets are the preferred method of communication. First, set :biff/event-handler:

src/example/core.clj
(defn start-example [sys]
  (-> sys
    ...
    (merge #:example.biff{:event-handler #(example.handlers/api % (:?data %))
                          ...})
    (biff.system/start-biff 'example)))
src/example/handlers.clj
(ns example.handlers
  ...)

(defmulti api :id)

(defmethod api :default
  [{:keys [id]} _]
  (trident.util/anom :not-found (str "No method for " id)))

(defmethod api :example/move
  [{:keys [biff/db session/uid] :as sys} {:keys [game-id location]}]
  ...)

(defmethod api :example/echo
  [{:keys [client-id biff/send-event]} arg]
  (send-event client-id [:example/prn ":example/echo called"])
  arg)

Biff provides a helper function for initializing the web socket connection on the frontend:

src/example/client/app.cljs
(defn ^:export init []
  (reset! example.client.app.system/system
    (biff.client/init-sub {:handler example.client.app.mutations/api
                           ...}))
  ...)
src/example/client/app/mutations.cljs
(defmulti api (comp first :?data))

(defmethod api :default
  [{[event-id] :?data} data]
  (println "unhandled event:" event-id))

(defmethod api :biff/error
  [_ anom]
  (pprint anom))

(defmethod api :example/prn
  [_ arg]
  (prn arg))

(defn api-send [& args]
  (apply (:api-send @example.client.app.system/system) args))

(comment
  (go
    (<! (api-send [:example/echo {:foo "bar"}]))
    ; => {:foo "bar"}
    ; => ":example/echo called"
    ))

Transactions

You can send arbitrary transactions from the frontend. They will be submitted only if they pass certain authorization rules which you define (see Rules). Transactions look like this:

src/example/client/app/mutations.cljs
(defn set-display-name [display-name]
  (api-send
    [:biff/tx
     {[:public-users {:user.public/id @db/uid}]
      {:db/merge true
       :display-name (or (not-empty display-name) :db/remove)}}]))

(defn set-game-id [game-id]
  (when (not= game-id @db/game-id)
    (api-send
      [:biff/tx
       (cond-> {}
         (not-empty @db/game-id)
         (assoc [:games {:game/id @db/game-id}]
           {:db/update true
            :users [:db/disj @db/uid]})

         (not-empty game-id)
         (assoc [:games {:game/id game-id}]
           {:db/merge true
            :users [:db/union @db/uid]}))])))

The transaction is a map from idents to documents. The first element of an ident is a table, such as :games. Tables are defined by your rules, and they specify which rules a document write must pass in order to be allowed.

The second element, if present, is a document ID. If omitted, it means we're creating a new document and we want the server to set the ID to a random UUID:

{[:messages] {:text "hello"}}

If you want to create multiple documents in the same table with random IDs, use a nested vector instead of a map.

[[[:messages] {:text "a"}]
 [[:messages] {:text "b"}]]

:db/current-time is replaced by the server with the current time.

{[:events] {:timestamp :db/current-time
            ...}}

If :db/update is true, the given document will be merged with an existing document, failing if the document doesn't exist. There's also :db/merge which simply creates the document if it doesn't exist (i.e. upsert).

{[:chatrooms {:chatroom/id #uuid "some-uuid"}]
 {:db/update true
  :title "Existing chatroom"}

 [:chatrooms {:chatroom/id #uuid "another-uuid"}]
 {:db/merge true
  :title "New or existing chatroom"}}

You can dissoc document keys by setting them to :db/remove. You can delete whole documents by setting them to nil.

{[:users {:user/id #uuid "my-id"}]
 {:db/update true
  :display-name :db/remove}

 [:orders {:order/id #uuid "some-order-id"}]
 nil}

You can add or remove an element to/from a set by using :db/union and :db/disj, respectively:

{[:games {:game/id #uuid "old-game-uuid"}]
 {:db/update true
  :users [:db/disj "my-uid"]}

 [:games {:game/id #uuid "new-game-uuid"}]
 {:db/update true
  :users [:db/union "my-uid"]}}

Using maps as document IDs lets you specify composite IDs. In addition, all keys in in the document ID will be duplicated in the document itself. This allows you to use document ID keys in your queries.

{[:user-item {:user #uuid "some-user-id"
              :item #uuid "some-item-id"}]
 {:rating :like}}

; Expands to:
[:crux.tx/put
 {:crux.db/id {:user #uuid "some-user-id"
               :item #uuid "some-item-id"}
  :user #uuid "some-user-id"
  :item #uuid "some-item-id"
  :rating :like}]

Subscriptions

Biff allows you to subscribe to Crux queries from the frontend with one major caveat: cross-entity joins are not allowed. Basically, this means all the where clauses in the query have to be for the same entity.

; OK
'{:find [doc]
  :where [[doc :foo 1]
          [doc :bar "hey"]]}

; Not OK
'{:find [doc]
  :where [[user :name "Tilly"]
          [doc :user user]]}

So to be clear, Biff's subscribable "queries" are not datalog at all. They're just predicates that can take advantage of Crux's indices. Biff makes this restriction so that it can provide query updates to clients efficiently without having to solve a hard research problem first. However, it turns out that we can go quite far even with this restriction.

On the frontend, use biff.client/init-sub to initialize a websocket connection that handles query subscriptions for you:

(def default-subscriptions
  #{[:biff/sub '{:table :users
                 :where [[:name "Ben"]
                         [:age age]
                         [(<= 18 age)]
                         [(yourapp.core/likes-cheese? doc)]]}]})

(def subscriptions (atom default-subscriptions))
(def sub-data (atom {}))

(biff.client/init-sub
  {:subscriptions subscriptions
   :sub-data sub-data})

If you want to subscribe to a query, swap! it into subscriptions. If you want to unsubscribe, swap! it out. Biff will populate sub-data with the results of your queries and remove old data when you unsubscribe. You can then use the contents of that atom to drive your UI. The contents of sub-data is a map of the form subscription->table->id->doc, for example:

{[:biff/sub '{:table :users
              :where ...}]
 {:users
  {{:user/id #uuid "some-uuid"} {:name "Sven"
                                 :age 250
                                 ...}}}}

Note the subscription format again:

[:biff/sub '{:table :users
             :where [[:name "Ben"]
                     [:age age]
                     [(<= 18 age)]
                     [(yourapp.core/likes-cheese? doc)]]}]

The first element is a Sente event ID. The query map (the second element) omits the entity variable in the where clauses since it has to be the same for each clause anyway. But it will be bound to doc in case you want to use it in e.g. a predicate function. :find is similarly omitted.

The :table value is connected to authorization rules which you define on the backend (see Rules). When a client subscribes to this query, it will be rejected unless you define rules for that table which allow the query. You also have to whitelist any predicate function calls (like yourapp.core/likes-cheese?), though the comparison operators (like <=) are whitelisted for you.

I haven't yet added support for or, not, etc. clauses in subscriptions. See #9.

You can also subscribe to individual documents:

[:biff/sub '{:table :users
             :id {:user/id #uuid "some-uuid"}}]

All this is most powerful when you make the subscriptions atom a derivation of sub-data:

src/example/client/app.cljs
(ns example.client.app
  (:require
    [biff.client :as bc]
    [example.client.app.db :as db]
    [example.client.app.mutations :as m]
    [example.client.app.system :as s]
    ...))

...

(defn ^:export init []
  (reset! s/system
    (bc/init-sub {:handler m/api
                  :sub-data db/sub-data
                  :subscriptions db/subscriptions}))
  ...)
src/example/client/app/db.cljs
(ns example.client.app.db
  (:require
    [example.logic :as logic]
    [trident.util :as u]
    [rum.core]))

(defonce db (atom {}))

; same as (do (rum.core/cursor-in db [:sub-data]) ...)
(u/defcursors db
  sub-data [:sub-data])

; same as (do
;           (rum.core/derived-atom [sub-data] :example.client.app.db/data
;             (fn [sub-data]
;               (apply merge-with merge (vals sub-data))))
;           ...)
(u/defderivations [sub-data] example.client.app.db
  data (apply merge-with merge (vals sub-data))

  uid (get-in data [:uid nil :uid])
  signed-in (and (some? uid) (not= :signed-out uid))
  user-ref {:user/id uid}
  game (->> data
         :games
         vals
         (filter #(contains? (:users %) uid))
         first)

  ...

  biff-subs [; :uid is a special non-Crux query. Biff will respond
             ; with the currently authenticated user's ID.
             :uid
             (when signed-in
               [{:table :users
                 :id user-ref}
                {:table :public-users
                 :id {:user.public/id uid}}
                {:table :games
                 :where [[:users uid]]}])
             (for [u (:users game)]
               {:table :public-users
                :id {:user.public/id u}})]
  subscriptions (->> biff-subs
                  flatten
                  (filter some?)
                  (map #(vector :biff/sub %))
                  set))

When a user signs into the example app, the following will happen:

  1. Client subscribes to :uid (i.e. subscriptions contains #{[:biff/sub :uid]}).
  2. sub-data is populated with the user's ID.
  3. signed-in changes to true and biff-subs gets updated. The client is now subscribed to various information about the current user, including the current game (if they've joined one).
  4. sub-data is populated with more data. The UI will display the user's email address, display name and current game. The client will subscribe to data about the other players (their display names).
  5. The other players' display names will be loaded into sub-data and the UI will update again.

This is what I meant when I said that we can go pretty far without cross-entity joins: using this method, we can declaratively load all the relevant data and perform joins on the client. This should be sufficient for many situations.

However, it won't work if you need an aggregation of a set of documents that's too large to send to the client (not to mention each client), or if the client isn't allowed to see the individual documents. To handle that, I've been working on a Materialize integration.

Rules

Relevant config:

:biff/rules nil         ; An authorization rules data structure.
:biff/fn-whitelist nil  ; Collection of fully-qualified function symbols to allow in
                        ; Crux queries sent from the frontend. Functions in clojure.core
                        ; need not be qualified. For example: '[map? example.core/frobulate]

Your app's rules define what transactions and subscriptions will be accepted from the frontend (see Transactions and Subscriptions).

The value of :biff/rules is a map of table->rules, for example:

src/example/rules.clj
(ns example.rules
  (:require
    [trident.util :as u]
    [clojure.spec.alpha :as s]))

; Same as (do (s/def ...) ...)
(u/sdefs
  :user/id uuid?
  ; like s/keys, but only allows specified keys.
  ::user-ref (u/only-keys :req [:user/id])
  ::user (u/only-keys :req [:user/email])
  ...)

(def rules
  {:users {:spec [::user-ref ::user]
           :get (fn [{:keys [session/uid] {:keys [user/id]} :doc}]
                  (= uid id))}
   ...})

Tables

The table is used in transactions and subscriptions to specify which rules should be used. The rules above authorize us to subscribe to this:

[:biff/sub {:table :users
            :id {:user/id #uuid "some-uuid"}}]

And for transactions:

{:games {:spec [::game-ref ::game]
         :create (fn [env] ...)}}
; Authorizes:
[:biff/tx {[:games {:game/id "ABCD"}]
           {:users #{#uuid "some-uuid"}}}]

Specs

For each document in the query result or transaction, authorization has two steps. First, the document ID and the document are checked with s/valid? against the two elements in :specs, respectively. For example, the specs for the :users table above would authorize a read or write operation on the following document:

{:crux.db/id {:user/id #uuid "some-uuid"}
 :user/id #uuid "some-uuid"
 :user/email "email@example.com"}

Note that during this check, the document will not include the ID or any keys in the ID (for map IDs). (Also recall that map ID keys are automatically duplicated in the document when using Biff transactions).

For write operations, the document must pass the spec before and/or after the transaction, depending on whether the document is being created, updated or deleted.

Operations

If the specs pass, then the document must pass a predicate specified by the operation. There are five operations: :create, :update, :delete, :query, :get.

{:messages {:specs ...
            :create (fn [env] ...)
            :get (fn [env] ...)}}

You can use the same predicate for multiple operations like so:

{:messages {:specs ...
            [:create :update] (fn [env] ...)}}

There are also several aliases:

Alias Expands to
:read [:query :get]
:write [:create :update :delete]
:rw [:query :get :create :update :delete]

For example:

{:messages {:specs ...
            :write (fn [env] ...)}}

:get refers to subscriptions for individual documents while :query is for multiple documents:

; get
[:biff/sub {:table :users
            :id {:user/id #uuid "some-uuid"}}]
; query
[:biff/sub {:table :games
            :where [[:users #uuid "some-uuid"]]}]

Predicates

Predicates receive the system map merged with some additional keys, depending on the operation:

Key Operations Description
:session/uid :rw The ID of the user who submitted the query/transaction. nil if they're unauthenticated.
:biff/db :rw The Crux DB value before this operation occurred.
:doc :rw The document being operated on.
:old-doc :write The previous value of the document being operated on.
:current-time :write The inst used to replace any occurrences of :db/current-time (see Transactions).
:generated-id :create true iff a random UUID was generated for this document's ID.

Some examples:

src/example/rules.clj
(def rules
  {:public-users {:spec [::user-public-ref ::user-public]
                  ; Returns false iff :session/uid is nil.
                  :get biff.rules/authenticated?
                  :write (fn [{:keys [session/uid] {:keys [user.public/id]} :doc}]
                           (= uid id))}
   :users {:spec [::user-ref ::user]
           :get (fn [{:keys [session/uid] {:keys [user/id]} :doc}]
                  (= uid id))}
   :games {:spec [::game-ref ::game]
           :query (fn [{:keys [session/uid] {:keys [users]} :doc}]
                    (contains? users uid))
           [:create :update] (fn [{:keys [session/uid doc old-doc]
                                   {:keys [users]} :doc}]
                               (and
                                 (some #(contains? (:users %) uid) [doc old-doc])
                                 ; Checks that no keys other than :users have changed
                                 ; (supports varargs).
                                 (biff.rules/only-changed-keys? doc old-doc :users)
                                 ; Checks that the value of :users (a set) hasn't changed except
                                 ; for the addition/removal of uid (supports varargs).
                                 (biff.rules/only-changed-elements? doc old-doc :users uid)))}})

{:events {:spec [uuid? ::event]
          :create (fn [{:keys [session/uid current-time generated-id]
                        {:keys [timestamp user]} :doc}]
                    (and
                      (= uid (:user/id user))
                      ; Make sure that :timestamp was set by the server, not the client.
                      (= current-time timestamp)
                      ; Make sure that the ID was set by the server, not the client.
                      generated-id))}}

Triggers

Relevant config:

:biff/triggers nil ; A database triggers data structure.

Triggers let you run code in response to document writes. You must define a map of table->operation->fn, for example:

src/example/triggers.clj
(defn assign-players [{:keys [biff/node doc]
                       {:keys [users x o]} :doc :as env}]
  ; When a user joins or leaves a game, re-assign users to X and O as needed.
  ; Delete the game document if everyone has left.
  (let [new-doc ... ; Same as doc but maybe with different :x and :o values
        op (cond
             (empty? users) [:crux.tx/delete (:crux.db/id doc)]
             (not= doc new-doc) [:crux.tx/put new-doc])]
    (when op
      (crux/submit-tx node
        [[:crux.tx/match (some :crux.db/id [doc new-doc]) doc]
         op]))))

(def triggers
  {:games {[:create :update] assign-players}})

See Tables and Operations. The function will receive the system map merged with the following keys:

Key Description
:doc The document that was written.
:doc-before The document's value before being written.
:db The Crux DB value after this operation occurred.
:db-before The Crux DB value before this operation occurred.
:op One of #{:create :update :delete}.

Production

Installation

First, create an Ubuntu droplet on DigitalOcean. Make sure you've added your public key to /root/.ssh/authorized_keys. If you've added your public key to DigitalOcean already, this may be handled automatically.

The following script includes setting up Let's Encrypt. Before running it, you'll need to point at the droplet any domain(s) you want to serve from Biff. The script will ask for a list of the domains and will generate a certificate for them.

Log in as root and run this:

git clone https://github.com/jacobobryant/biff
./biff/prod/install.sh
reboot

install.sh will:

  1. Install dependencies
  2. Create a non-root user
  3. Install Biff as a systemd service (i.e. autostart on boot)
  4. Setup Nginx
  5. Install certificates
  6. Setup firewall

If you ever want to update the list of domains served by Biff, just run something like the following:

certbot --nginx -d 'findka.com,jacobobryant.com'

I've only tested the install script on DigitalOcean, but it should work on other providers with little to no tweaking.

Deployment

By default, Biff uses Postgres for storage in production. Managed Postgres is easy to set up in DigitalOcean. After doing that, you'll just need to set the :biff.crux.jdbc/* parameters in config.edn. Alternatively, you can set :biff.crux/topology :standalone to use filesystem storage in production (good for experimenting, but not recommended for non-hobby apps). Also, you must set the hostname key (:example.biff/host in the example app).

config.edn
{:prod {; If you set jdbc credentials, remove this file from source control!
        :biff.crux.jdbc/dbname "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/user "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/password "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/host "..."
        :biff.crux.jdbc/port ...
        ; Uncomment to use filesystem storage in production instead of jdbc:
        ; :biff.crux/topology :standalone
        :example.biff/host "example.com" ; change this
        ...}
 ...}

Steps for deploying

  1. Copy config.edn from your local machine to /home/biff/prod/config.edn on the server (e.g. scp config.edn root@example.com:/home/biff/prod/).
  2. Commit any static resources you need to your project's repo (or write your own code to download them from a CI server). For example, run ./task compile-cljs in the example app:
task
APP_NS="example"
CLJS_APPS="app"

compile-cljs () {
  npx shadow-cljs release $CLJS_APPS
  for app in $CLJS_APPS; do
    mkdir -p resources/www/$APP_NS/cljs/$app
    cp {www-dev,resources/www/$APP_NS}/cljs/$app/main.js
  done
}
  1. First deploy: Set :git/url for your project in /home/biff/prod/deps.edn on the server (e.g. "https://github.com/example/example"). Then run reboot. The latest commit hash will be fetched from your repo and added to the file on startup.
    Future deploys: Delete :sha "..." from /home/biff/prod/deps.edn so that the latest commit hash will be fetched again on startup. Alternatively, you can specify the :sha value explicitly (e.g. for rollbacks).
  2. Watch the logs: journalctl -u biff -f. Your app should be live after you see System started.

If you want to deploy your app from a private repo, you'll need to add a deploy key. Biff will add it to the keychain for you on app startup.

FAQ

Comparison to Firebase

Basically, if you like Firebase and you like Clojure backend dev, you might enjoy using Biff for your next side project. Same if you like the idea of Firebase but in practice you have issues with it. If you want something mature or you like having a Node/ClojureScript backend, Firebase is a great choice. Here's a non-trivial example of using Firebase with ClojureScript.

Some shared features:

Some differences:

Comparison to Fulcro

Similarities:

Differences:

Why Crux and not Datomic?

I used Datomic pretty heavily in my own projects for about a year prior to switching to Firestore and then Crux. My opinion on Datomic vs. Crux is that Datomic is more powerful and can probably scale better, but Crux is easier to get started with and has a lot less operational overhead for small projects (in terms of developer time). I've had many headaches from my time using Datomic (and AWS, which Datomic Cloud is coupled to). On the other hand, using Crux has been smooth—and you can use DigitalOcean instead of AWS (yay). Since Biff prioritizes the solo-developer / early-stage / rapid-prototyping use-case, I think Crux is a much better fit. Whereas if I was in a situation with many developers/delivering an application that I knew would have scale once released, Datomic Cloud Ions I think would be great.

Off the top of my head, a few more reasons:

Clojure