This-RS 🦀

A generic entity and relationship management framework for building RESTful APIs in Rust with zero boilerplate.

✨ Highlights

• 🔌 Generic Entity System - Add entities without modifying framework code
• 🤖 Auto-Generated Routes - Declare a module, routes are created automatically
• 🔗 Flexible Relationships - Multiple link types between same entities
• ↔️ Bidirectional Navigation - Query relationships from both directions
• ✨ Auto-Enriched Links - Full entities in responses, no N+1 queries
• 🏗️ Macro-Driven Entities - Define entities with zero boilerplate using macros
• 🎯 Smart Entity Creation - Create new entities + links in one API call
• 📝 Auto-Pluralization - Smart plural forms (company → companies)
• ⚙️ YAML Configuration - Declarative entity and link definitions
• 🔒 Type-Safe - Full Rust compile-time guarantees

🎯 The Vision

Traditional Framework (❌)

// Add new entity = Modify 10+ files
// - Update routing module (30+ lines)
// - Modify link handlers
// - Update entity registry
// - Write CRUD boilerplate
// - Maintain consistency manually

This-RS (✅)

// Add new entity = Just use a macro!
impl_data_entity!(Product, "product", ["name", "sku"], {
    sku: String,
    price: f64,
    description: Option<String>,
});

// Main.rs stays unchanged!
let app = ServerBuilder::new()
    .register_module(module)?  // ← Everything auto-generated
    .build()?;

Result: Zero boilerplate, maximum productivity.

🚀 Quick Example

1. Define Your Entity with Macros

use this::prelude::*;

// Macro generates full entity with all base fields
impl_data_entity!(Product, "product", ["name", "sku"], {
    sku: String,
    price: f64,
    description: Option<String>,
    stock: i32,
});

// Automatically includes:
// - id: Uuid (auto-generated)
// - type: String (auto-set to "product")
// - name: String (required)
// - created_at: DateTime<Utc> (auto-generated)
// - updated_at: DateTime<Utc> (auto-managed)
// - deleted_at: Option<DateTime<Utc>> (soft delete)
// - status: String (required)

2. Create Entity Store with EntityCreator

use this::prelude::*;

#[derive(Clone)]
pub struct ProductStore {
    data: Arc<RwLock<HashMap<Uuid, Product>>>,
}

// Implement EntityFetcher for link enrichment
#[async_trait]
impl EntityFetcher for ProductStore {
    async fn fetch_as_json(&self, entity_id: &Uuid) -> Result<serde_json::Value> {
        let product = self.get(entity_id)
            .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("Product not found"))?;
        Ok(serde_json::to_value(product)?)
    }
}

// Implement EntityCreator for automatic entity creation
#[async_trait]
impl EntityCreator for ProductStore {
    async fn create_from_json(&self, entity_data: serde_json::Value) -> Result<serde_json::Value> {
        let product = Product::new(
            entity_data["name"].as_str().unwrap_or("").to_string(),
            entity_data["status"].as_str().unwrap_or("active").to_string(),
            entity_data["sku"].as_str().unwrap_or("").to_string(),
            entity_data["price"].as_f64().unwrap_or(0.0),
            entity_data["description"].as_str().map(String::from),
            entity_data["stock"].as_i64().unwrap_or(0) as i32,
        );
        self.add(product.clone());
        Ok(serde_json::to_value(product)?)
    }
}

3. Create Module

impl Module for CatalogModule {
    fn name(&self) -> &str { "catalog-service" }
    fn entity_types(&self) -> Vec<&str> { vec!["product"] }
    
    fn links_config(&self) -> Result<LinksConfig> {
        LinksConfig::from_file("config/links.yaml")
    }
    
    fn register_entities(&self, registry: &mut EntityRegistry) {
        registry.register(Box::new(ProductDescriptor::new(self.store.clone())));
    }
    
    fn get_entity_fetcher(&self, entity_type: &str) -> Option<Arc<dyn EntityFetcher>> {
        match entity_type {
            "product" => Some(Arc::new(self.store.clone()) as Arc<dyn EntityFetcher>),
            _ => None,
        }
    }
    
    fn get_entity_creator(&self, entity_type: &str) -> Option<Arc<dyn EntityCreator>> {
        match entity_type {
            "product" => Some(Arc::new(self.store.clone()) as Arc<dyn EntityCreator>),
            _ => None,
        }
    }
}

4. Launch Server (Auto-Generated Routes!)

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<()> {
    let app = ServerBuilder::new()
        .with_link_service(InMemoryLinkService::new())
        .register_module(CatalogModule::new(store))?
        .build()?;  // ← All routes created automatically!
    
    let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("0.0.0.0:3000").await?;
    axum::serve(listener, app).await?;
    Ok(())
}

That's it! Routes are auto-generated:

• ✅ GET /products - List all
• ✅ POST /products - Create new product
• ✅ GET /products/:id - Get by ID
• ✅ PUT /products/:id - Update product
• ✅ DELETE /products/:id - Delete product
• ✅ GET /products/:id/links - Introspection
• ✅ Link routes (if configured in YAML)

🔗 Advanced Link Features

Two Ways to Create Links

1. Link Existing Entities

# POST /orders/{order_id}/invoices/{invoice_id}
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/orders/abc-123/invoices/inv-456 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"metadata": {"priority": "high"}}'

2. Create New Entity + Link Automatically

# POST /orders/{order_id}/invoices
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/orders/abc-123/invoices \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "entity": {
      "number": "INV-999",
      "amount": 1500.00,
      "status": "active"
    },
    "metadata": {"priority": "high"}
  }'

# Response includes both created entity AND link!
{
  "entity": {
    "id": "inv-999-uuid",
    "type": "invoice",
    "name": "INV-999",
    "amount": 1500.00,
    ...
  },
  "link": {
    "id": "link-uuid",
    "source_id": "abc-123",
    "target_id": "inv-999-uuid",
    ...
  }
}

Auto-Enriched Link Responses

When you query links, you automatically get full entity data:

# GET /orders/{id}/invoices
{
  "links": [
    {
      "id": "link-123",
      "source_id": "order-abc",
      "target_id": "invoice-xyz",
      "target": {
        "id": "invoice-xyz",
        "type": "invoice",
        "name": "INV-001",
        "amount": 1500.00,
        ...
      }
    }
  ]
}

No N+1 queries! Entities are fetched efficiently in the background.

📚 Examples

Microservice Example

Complete billing microservice with auto-generated routes:

cargo run --example microservice

Output:

🚀 Starting billing-service v1.0.0
📦 Entities: ["order", "invoice", "payment"]
🌐 Server running on http://127.0.0.1:3000

📚 Entity Routes (CRUD - Auto-generated):
  GET    /orders                        - List all orders
  POST   /orders                        - Create a new order
  GET    /orders/{id}                   - Get a specific order
  PUT    /orders/{id}                   - Update an order
  DELETE /orders/{id}                   - Delete an order

🔗 Link Routes (Auto-generated):
  GET    /orders/{id}/invoices          - List invoices for an order
  POST   /orders/{id}/invoices          - Create new invoice + link automatically
  POST   /orders/{id}/invoices/{inv_id} - Link existing order & invoice
  PUT    /orders/{id}/invoices/{inv_id} - Update link metadata
  DELETE /orders/{id}/invoices/{inv_id} - Delete link

See examples/microservice/README.md for full details.

🏗️ Architecture

Entity Hierarchy

Entity (Base Trait)
├── id: Uuid
├── type: String
├── created_at: DateTime<Utc>
├── updated_at: DateTime<Utc>
├── deleted_at: Option<DateTime<Utc>>
└── status: String

    ├─► Data (Inherits Entity)
    │   └── name: String
    │       + indexed_fields()
    │       + field_value()
    │
    └─► Link (Inherits Entity)
        ├── source_id: Uuid
        ├── target_id: Uuid
        └── link_type: String

Core Concepts

1. ServerBuilder - Fluent API for building HTTP servers
2. EntityDescriptor - Describes how to generate routes for an entity
3. EntityRegistry - Collects and builds all entity routes
4. Module - Groups related entities with configuration
5. LinkService - Generic relationship management
6. EntityFetcher - Dynamically fetch entities for link enrichment
7. EntityCreator - Dynamically create entities with automatic linking

Macro System

• impl_data_entity! - Generate a complete Data entity
• impl_link_entity! - Generate a custom Link entity
• entity_fields! - Inject base Entity fields
• data_fields! - Inject Entity + name fields
• link_fields! - Inject Entity + link fields

📖 Documentation

• Quick Start - Fast introduction
• Getting Started - Step-by-step tutorial
• Enriched Links - Auto-enrichment & performance
• Architecture - Technical deep dive
• ServerBuilder - Auto-routing details
• Full Documentation - Complete documentation index

🎁 Key Benefits

For Developers

✅ -88% less boilerplate (340 → 40 lines in main.rs)
✅ Add entity in minutes - Just one macro call
✅ Consistent patterns - Same structure for all entities
✅ Type-safe - Full Rust compile-time checks
✅ Scalable - 3 or 300 entities = same simplicity

For Teams

✅ Faster development - Less code to write and maintain
✅ Easier onboarding - Clear patterns and conventions
✅ Reduced errors - Less manual work = fewer mistakes
✅ Better consistency - Framework enforces best practices

For Production

✅ Authorization - Declarative auth policies
✅ Configurable - YAML-based configuration
✅ Extensible - Plugin architecture via modules
✅ Performance - Efficient link enrichment with no N+1 queries
✅ Soft Deletes - Built-in soft delete support

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE-MIT file for details.

🌟 Why This-RS?

"The best code is the code you don't have to write."

This-RS eliminates boilerplate while maintaining type safety and flexibility. Perfect for:

• 🏢 Microservices architectures
• 🔌 REST APIs with complex relationships
• 🚀 Rapid prototyping
• 📊 Data-rich applications with interconnected entities

Built with Rust. Designed for productivity. Ready for production. 🦀✨