Uniform
Uniform v0.6.0

View Source How It Works

With Uniform, multiple apps are maintained together in a single Elixir codebase. When you're ready to deploy an app, it's "ejected" to a separate codebase that only contains the code needed by the app.

the-base-project

 The Base Project

The Base Project is the single Elixir project that houses multiple separate apps. Apps are developed and tested together in the Base Project.

The Base Project's lib directory is central. It contains directories for:

  1. Ejectable Apps
  2. Lib Dependencies (shared libraries)

So the directory structure of a Base Project might look like this.

+ my_base_app
  + lib
    + my_first_app
    + my_second_app
    + utilities
    + ui_components

Each Base Project needs a Blueprint module configuring which files are copied to ejected repositories.

what-is-ejecting

 What is "Ejecting"?

"Ejecting" an app means copying the app's code to a separate, standalone codebase – without including code the app doesn't need.

  • Unused Lib Dependencies are excluded from lib
  • Unused Mix Dependencies are removed from mix.exs

Ejecting is done with mix uniform.eject.

mix uniform.eject my_app_name

ejectable-apps

 Ejectable Apps

Ejectable Apps are apps that can be ejected from the Base Project. Create them with mix uniform.gen.app.

mix uniform.gen.app my_new_app

To set up an Ejectable App manually:

  1. Make a directory inside lib for your app (E.g. lib/my_new_app)
  2. Add uniform.exs inside it

exactly-which-files-get-ejected

 Exactly which files get ejected?

There are four rules that determine which files are copied during ejection.

Basically, the Blueprint's base_files are ejected along with every directory in lib and test whose name matches (1) the app being ejected and (2) its Lib Dependencies.

Make sure to build out your Blueprint's base_files and deps sections. If you're building Phoenix apps, you may want to consult the Setting up a Phoenix project guide.