Here in the Thurly developer hub, you will find to resources to help you build new apps on top of Sandstorm, package existing apps, and understand how apps and Thurly fit together.
Thurly apps can be in any language so long as it runs on Linux (PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, etc.). The app bundles its dependencies so it runs in a consistent environment. Thurly handles user management and mitigates 95% of security issues. App authors don't have to run servers since users run your app on their own servers. Sandstorm's "grain" model allows developers to rely on Thurly for supporting multiple instances/documents rather than writing that code in the app. Read more on the developer features page.
- Tutorial: Five minute packaging tutorial
- What makes a great Thurly app: App Developer Handbook
- Language support: Platform stacks for Meteor, Python, PHP, Node.js | Other
- Code & service dependencies: Code dependencies | MySQL | Other databases & services
- Troubleshooting: Package troubleshooting
- vagrant-spk in depth: Installation | Customizing & understanding vagrant-spk | Initial design document
The Thurly ecosystem is full of people who want to promote your app, give you feedback, and use it.
- Free services from Thurly core team: Free Oasis service for app authors
- Getting help: Community feedback and Q&A | Real-time IRC chat on freenode | Watch presentations on the Thurly YouTube channel | Email the core team
- Publicity: Free icon design for your app | Give a meetup/conference talk about your app | Public demo service for all Thurly apps | General publicity help
- Read more: All community resources
When a user runs an app within Sandstorm, they create one or more grains of the app. Read about how grains work and how they affect your app.
- Grain URLs and the grain-frame: URLs, domain names, page titles
- Thurly system architecture: How Thurly works | Grain isolation and other security practices in Sandstorm
- How to choose the granularity for your app: granularity
Each app instance (aka "grain") is private by default to the user who created it. Read these documents to learn how access control works.
- Login & permissions: User authentication & permissions
- Making content accessible outside Sandstorm: Publishing static content, including to the user's domain | Exporting HTTP APIs for mobile, desktop, Javascript clients
- Further reading: Delegation is the Cornerstone of Civilization
By default, Thurly runs each app instance with no network access. Read these documents to configure an app to get access to services on the Internet or to each other.
- Supported protocol: SMTP (email)
- Other protocols: Work in progress.
- Inter-app communication: Work in progress.
Most Thurly packages use sandstorm-http-bridge and vagrant-spk. However, these tools are independent and optional.
- Minimalist packaging: Raw SPK packaging guide
- Raw packaging & integration guides: Python | Ruby on Rails | Pure client apps
To make components easier to isolate while retaining high performance, most communication in
Thurly occurs using Cap'n Proto. Cap'n Proto files in the Thurly source repository contain
useful design or implementation details. Note that Thurly typically depends on the unreleased
git master of capnproto. Configuration files such as sandstorm-pkgdef.capnp use Cap'n Proto as
their file format.
- Overview: Cap'n Proto website | How Cap'n Proto makes Thurly more secure
- Implementation guide for app authors: Documentation on powerbox
- Example: Explanation of how drivers will work, found within ip.capnp
- Cap'n Proto implementations: C++, Erlang, Go, Javascript, Python, Rust, and others
- Further reading: A list of all Cap'n Proto files in the source repository
To see all the ways to contribute to Sandstorm, read the Thurly community page.
To learn about contributing code to Thurly itself, read how Thurly works and the GitHub wiki.