xtemplate

xtemplate is a html/template-based hypertext preprocessor and rapid application development web server written in Go. It streamlines construction of hypermedia-exchange-oriented web sites by efficiently handling basic server tasks, enabling authors to focus on defining routes and responding to them using templates and configurable data sources.

🎯 Goal

After bulding some sites with htmx and Go, I wished that everything would just get out of the way of the fundamentals:

• URLs and path patterns
• Access to a backing data source
• Executing a template to return HTML

🎇 The idea of xtemplate is that templates can be the nexus of these fundamentals.

🚫 Anti-goals

xtemplate needs to implement some of the things that are required to make a good web server in a way that avoids common issues with existing web server designs, otherwise they'll be in the way of the fundamentals:

• Rigid template behavior: Most designs relegate templates to be dumb string concatenators with just enough dynamic behavior to walk over some fixed data structure.
• Inefficient template loading: Some designs read template files from disk and parse them on every request. This seems wasteful when the web server definition is typically static.
• Constant rebuilds: On the other end of the spectrum, some designs require rebuilding the entire server from source when any little thing changes. This seems wasteful and makes graceful restarts more difficult than necessary when all you're doing is changing a button name.
• Repetitive route definitions: Why should you have to name a http handler and add it to a central registry (or maintain a pile of code that plumbs these together for you) when new routes are often only relevant to the local html?
• Default unsafe: Some designs require authors to vigilantly escape user inputs, risking XSS attacks that could have been avoided with less effort.
• Inefficient asset serving: Some designs compress static assets at request time, instead of serving pre-compressed content with sendfile(2) and negotiated content encoding. Most designs don't give templates access to the hash of asset files, depriving clients of enough information to optimize caching behavior and check resource integrity.

✨ Features

Click a feature to expand and show details:

⚡ Efficient design

All template files are read and parsed once, at startup, and kept in memory during the life of an xtemplate instance. Requests are routed to a handler that immediately starts executing a template reference in response. No slow cascading disk accesses or parsing overhead before you even begin crafting the response.

🔄 Live reload

Template files are loaded into a new instance and validated milliseconds after they are modified, no need to restart the server. If an error occurs during load the previous instance remains intact and continues to serve while the loading error is printed to the logs. A successful reload atomically swaps the handler so new requests are served by the new instance; pending requests are allowed to complete gracefully.

Add this template definition and one-line script to your page, then clients will automatically reload when the server does:

{{- define "SSE /reload"}}{{.WaitForServerStop}}data: reload{{printf "\n\n"}}{{end}}
<script>new EventSource("/reload").onmessage = () => location.reload()</script>
<!-- Maybe not a great idea for production, but you do you. -->

🗃️ Simple file-based routing

GET requests are handled by invoking a matching template file at that path. (Hidden files that start with . are loaded but not routed by default.)

File path:              HTTP path:
.
├── index.html          GET /
├── todos.html          GET /todos
├── admin
│   └── settings.html   GET /admin/settings
└── shared
    └── .head.html      (not routed because it starts with '.')

🔱 Add custom routes to handle any method and path pattern

Handle any Go 1.22 ServeMux pattern by defining a template with that pattern as its name. Path placeholders are available during template execution with the .Req.PathValue method.

<!-- match on path parameters -->
{{define "GET /contact/{id}"}}
{{$contact := .QueryRow `SELECT name,phone FROM contacts WHERE id=?` (.Req.PathValue "id")}}
<div>
  <span>Name: {{$contact.name}}</span>
  <span>Phone: {{$contact.phone}}</span>
</div>
{{end}}

<!-- match on any http method -->
{{define "DELETE /contact/{id}"}}
{{$_ := .Exec `DELETE from contacts WHERE id=?` (.Req.PathValue "id")}}
{{.RespStatus 204}}
{{end}}

👨‍💻 Define and invoke custom templates

All html files under the template root directory are available to invoke by their full path relative to the template root dir starting with /:

<html>
  <title>Home</title>
  <!-- import the contents of another file -->
  {{template "/shared/.head.html" .}}

  <body>
    <!-- invoke a custom named template defined anywhere -->
    {{template "navbar" .}}
    ...
  </body>
</html>

🛡️ XSS safe by default

The html/template library automatically escapes user content, so you can rest easy from basic XSS attacks. The defacto standard html sanitizer for Go, BlueMonday, is available for cases where you need finer grained control.

If you have some html string that you do trust, it's easy to inject if that's your intention with the trustHtml func.

🎨 Customize the context to provide selected data sources

Configure xtemplate to get access to built-in and custom data sources like running SQL queries against a database, sending and receiving messages using a message streaming client like NATS, read and list files from a local directory, reading static config from a key-value store, or perform any action you can define by writing a Go API, like the common "repository" design pattern for example.

Modify Config to add built-in or custom ContextProvider implementations, and they will be made available in the dot context.

Some built-in context providers are listed next:

💽 Database context provider: Execute queries

Add the built-in Database Context Provider to run queries using the configured Go driver and connection string for your database. (Supports the sqlite3 driver by default, compile with your desired driver to use it.)

<ul>
  {{range .DB.Query `SELECT id,name FROM contacts`}}
  <li><a href="/contact/{{.id}}">{{.name}}</a></li>
  {{end}}
</ul>

🗄️ Filesystem context provider: List and read local files

Add the built-in Filesystem Context Provider to List and read files from the configured directory.

<p>Here are the files:
<ol>
{{range .ListFiles "dir/"}}
  <li>{{.Name}}</li>
{{end}}
</ol>

💬 NATS context provider: Send and receive messages

Add and configure the NATS Context Provider to send messages, use the Request-Response pattern, and even send live updates to a client.

<example></example>

📤 Optimal asset serving

Non-template files in the templates directory are served directly from disk with appropriate caching responses, negotiating with the client to serve compressed versions. Efficient access to the content hash is available to templates for efficient SRI and perfect cache behavior.

If a static file also has .gz, .br, .zip, or .zst copies, they are decoded and hashed for consistency on startup, and use the Accept-Encoding header to negotiate an appropriate Content-Encoding with the client and served directly from disk.

Templates can efficiently access the static file's precalculated content hash to build a <script> or <link> integrity attribute, instructing clients to check the integrity of the content if they are served through a CDN. See: Subresource Integrity

Add the content hash as a query parameter and responses will automatically add a 1 year long Cache-Control header so clients can safely cache as long as possible. If the file changes, its hash and thus query parameter will change so the client will immediately request a new version, entirely eliminating stale cache issues.

{{- with $hash := .StaticFileHash `/reset.css`}}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/reset.css?hash={{$hash}}" integrity="{{$hash}}">
{{- end}}

📬 Live updates with Server Sent Events (SSE)

Define a template with a name that starts with SSE, like SSE /url/path, and SSE requests will be handled by invoking the template. Individual messages can be sent by using .Flush, and the template can be paused to wait on messages sent over Go channels or can block on server shutdown.

🐜 Small footprint and easy deployment

Compiles to a ~30MB binary. Easily add your own custom functions and choice of database driver on top. Deploy next to your templates and static files or embed them into the binary for single binary deployments.

📦 How to run

1. 📦 As a Caddy plugin

The xtemplate-caddy plugin offers all xtemplate features integrated into Caddy, a fast and extensible multi-platform HTTP/1-2-3 web server with automatic HTTPS.

Download Caddy with xtemplate-caddy middleware plugin built-in:

https://caddyserver.com/download?package=github.com%2Finfogulch%2Fxtemplate-caddy

This is the simplest Caddyfile that uses the xtemplate-caddy plugin:

routes {
  xtemplate
}

Alternatively, build with the xcaddy CLI tool.

2. 📦 As the default CLI application

Download from the Releases page or build the binary in ./cmd.

Custom builds can include your chosen db drivers, make Go functions available to the template definitions, and even embed templates for true single binary deployments. The ./cmd package is the reference CLI application, consider starting your customization there.

🎏 CLI flags and examples: (click to show)

$ ./xtemplate -help
xtemplate is a hypertext preprocessor and html templating http server

Usage: ./xtemplate [options]

Options:
  -listen string              Listen address (default "0.0.0.0:8080")

  -template-path string       Directory where templates are loaded from (default "templates")
  -watch-template bool        Watch the template directory and reload if changed (default true)
  -template-extension string  File extension to look for to identify templates (default ".html")
  -minify bool                Preprocess the template files to minimize their size at load time (default false)
  -ldelim string              Left template delimiter (default "{{")
  -rdelim string              Right template delimiter (default "}}")

  -context-path string        Directory that template definitions are given direct access to. No access is given if empty (default "")
  -watch-context bool         Watch the context directory and reload if changed (default false)

  -db-driver string           Name of the database driver registered as a Go 'sql.Driver'. Not available if empty. (default "")
  -db-connstr string          Database connection string

  -c string                   Config values, in the form 'x=y'. Can be used multiple times

  -log int                    Log level. Log statements below this value are omitted from log output, DEBUG=-4, INFO=0, WARN=4, ERROR=8 (Default: 0)
  -help                       Display help

Examples:
    Listen on port 80:
    $ ./xtemplate -listen :80

    Specify a context directory and reload when it changes:
    $ ./xtemplate -context-path context/ -watch-context

    Parse template files matching a custom extension and minify them:
    $ ./xtemplate -template-extension ".go.html" -minify

    Open the specified db and makes it available to template files as '.DB':
    $ ./xtemplate -db-driver sqlite3 -db-connstr 'file:rss.sqlite?_journal=WAL'

3. 📦 As a Go library

xtemplate's public Go API starts with a xtemplate.Config, from which you can get either an xtemplate.Instance interface or a xtemplate.Server interface, with the methods config.Instance() and config.Server(), respectively.

An xtemplate.Instance is an immutable http.Handler that can handle requests, and exposes some metadata about the files loaded as well as the ServeMux patterns and associated handlers for individual routes. An xtemplate.Server also handles http requests by forwarding requests to an internal Instance, but the Server can be reloaded by calling server.Reload(), which creates a new Instance with the previous config and atomically switches the handler to direct new requests to the new Instance.

Use an Instance if you have no interest in reloading, or if you want to use xtemplate handlers in your own mux. Use a Server if you want an easy way to smoothly reload and replace the xtemplate Instance behind a http.Handler at runtime.

👨‍🏭 How to use

🧰 Template semantics

xtemplate templates are based on Go's html/template package, with some additional features and enhancements. Here are the key things to keep in mind:

• All template files are loaded recursively from the specified root directory, and they are parsed and cached in memory at startup.
• Each template file is associated with a specific route based on its file path. For example, index.html in the root directory will handle requests to the / path, while admin/settings.html will handle requests to /admin/settings.
• You can define custom routes by defining a template with a special name in your template files. For example, {{define "GET /custom-route"}}...{{end}} will create a new route that handles GET requests to /custom-route. Names also support path parameters as defined by http.ServeMux.
• Template files can be invoked from within other templates using either their full path relative to the template root or by using its defined template name.
• Templates are executed with a uniform context object, which provides access to request data, database connections, and other useful dynamic functionality.
• Templates can also call functions set at startup.

Note

Custom dot fields and functions are similar in that they both add functionality to the templates, but dot fields are distinguished in that they are initialized on every request with access to request-scoped details including the underlying http.Request and http.ResponseWriter objects, the request-scoped logger, and the server context.

Thus FuncMap functions are recommended for adding simple computational functionality (like parsing, escaping, data structure manipulation, etc), whereas dot fields are recommended for more complicated tasks like accessing network resources, running database queries, accessing the file system, etc.

📝 Context

The dot context {{.}} set on each template invocation provides access to request-specific data and response control methods, and can be modified to add custom fields with your own methods.

✏️ Built-in dot fields

These fields are always present in relevant template invocations:

• Access instance data with the .X field. See DotX
• Access request details with the .Req field. See DotReq
• Control the HTTP response in buffered template handlers with the .Resp field. See DotResp
• Control flushing behavior for flushing template handlers (i.e. SSE) with the .Flush field. See DotFlush

✏️ Optional dot fields

These optional value providers can be configured with any field name, and can be configured multiple times with different configurations.

• Read and list files. See DotFS
• Query and execute SQL statements. See DotDB
• Read template-level key-value map. See DotKV

✏️ Custom dot fields

You can create custom dot fields that expose arbitrary Go functionality to your templates. See 👩‍⚕️ Writing a custom DotProvider.

📐 Functions

These are built-in functions that are available to all invocations and don't depend on request context or mutate state. There are three sets by default: functions that come by default in the go template library, functions from the sprig library, and custom functions added by xtemplate.

You can custom FuncMaps by configuring the Config.FuncMaps field.

• 📏 xtemplate includes funcs to render markdown, sanitize html, convert values to human-readable forms, and to try to call a function to handle an error within the template. See the free functions named FuncXYZ(...) in xtemplate's Go docs for details.
• 📏 Sprig publishes a library of useful template funcs that enable templates to manipulate strings, integers, floating point numbers, and dates, as well as perform encoding tasks, manipulate lists and dicts, converting types, and manipulate file paths See Sprig Function Documentation.
• 📏 Go's built in functions add logic and basic printing functionality. See: text/template#Functions.

🏆 Users

• PixyBlue/lazy-lob-web, a fullstack web lob framework.
• infogulch/xrss, an rss feed reader built with htmx and inline css.
• infogulch/todos, a demo todomvc application.

👷‍♀️ Development

🗺️ Repository structure

xtemplate is split into the following packages:

• github.com/infogulch/xtemplate, a library that loads template files and implements an http.Handler that routes requests to templates and serves static files.
• github.com/infogulch/xtemplate/providers, contains optional dot provider implementations for common functionality.
• github.com/infogulch/xtemplate/cmd, a simple binary that configures xtemplate with CLI args and serves http requests with it.
• github.com/infogulch/xtemplate-caddy, uses xtemplate's Go library API to integrate xtemplate into Caddy server as a Caddy module.

Tip

To understand how the xtemplate package works, it may be helpful to skim through the files in this order: config.go, server.go instance.go, build.go, handlers.go.

Testing

xtemplate is tested by running ./test/test.go which runs xtemplate configured to use test/templates as the templates dir and test/context as the FS dot provider, and runs hurl files from the test/tests directory.

👩‍⚕️ Writing a custom DotProvider

Implement the xtemplate.RegisteredDotProvider interface on your type and register it with xtemplate.Register(). Optionally implement encoding.TextMarshaller and encoding.TextUnmarshaller to round-trip configuration from cli flags.

On startup xtemplate will create a struct that includes your value as a field. For every request your DotProvider.Value method is called with request details and its return value is assigned onto the struct which is passed to html/template as the dot value {{.}}.

✅ Project history and license

The idea for this project started as infogulch/go-htmx (now archived), which included the first implementations of template-name-based routing, exposing sql db functions to templates, and a persistent templates instance shared across requests and reloaded when template files changed.

go-htmx was refactored and rebased on top of the templates module from the Caddy server to create caddy-xtemplate to add some extra features including reading files directly and built-in funcs for markdown conversion, and to get a jump start on supporting the broad array of web server features without having to implement them from scratch.

xtemplate has since been refactored to be usable independently from Caddy. Instead, xtemplate-caddy is published as a separate module that depends on the xtemplate Go API and integrates xtemplate into Caddy as a Caddy http middleware.

xtemplate is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. See LICENSE