kudzu

Watch the video introduction

kudzu is a powerful and efficient open-source HTTP server framework and CMS. It provides automatic, free, and secure HTTP/2 over TLS (certificates obtained via Let's Encrypt), a useful CMS and scaffolding to generate content editors, and a fast HTTP API on which to build modern applications.

kudzu is released under the BSD-3-Clause license (see LICENSE). (c) Boss Sauce Creative, LLC

Why?

With the rise in popularity of web/mobile apps connected to JSON HTTP APIs, better tools to support the development of content servers and management systems are necessary. kudzu fills the void where you want to reach for Wordpress to get a great CMS, or Rails for rapid development, but need a fast JSON response in a high-concurrency environment.

Because you want to turn this:

$ kudzu gen content song title:"string" artist:"string" rating:"int" opinion:"string":richtext spotify_url:"string"

Into this:

What's inside

• Automatic & Free SSL/TLS¹
• HTTP/2 and Server Push
• Rapid development with CLI-controlled code generators
• User-friendly, extensible CMS and administration dashboard
• Simple deployment - single binary + assets, embedded DB (BoltDB)
• Fast, helpful framework while maintaining control

¹ TLS:

• Development: self-signed certificates auto-generated
• Production: auto-renewing certificates fetched from Let's Encrypt

↩

Documentation

For more detailed documentation, check out the docs

Installation

$ go get -u github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu/...

Requirements

Go 1.8+

Since HTTP/2 Server Push is used, Go 1.8+ is required. However, it is not required of clients connecting to a kudzu server to make HTTP/2 requests.

Usage

$ kudzu command [flags] <params>

Commands

new

Creates a project directory of the name supplied as a parameter immediately following the 'new' option in the $GOPATH/src directory. Note: 'new' depends on the program 'git' and possibly a network connection. If there is no local repository to clone from at the local machine's $GOPATH, 'new' will attempt to clone the 'github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu' package from over the network.

Example:

$ kudzu new github.com/nilslice/proj
> New kudzu project created at $GOPATH/src/github.com/nilslice/proj

Errors will be reported, but successful commands return nothing.

generate, gen, g

Generate boilerplate code for various kudzu components, such as content.

Example:

            generator      struct fields and built-in types...
             |              |
             v              v
$ kudzu gen content review title:"string" body:"string":richtext rating:"int"
                     ^                                   ^
                     |                                   |
                    struct type                         (optional) input view specifier

The command above will generate the file content/review.go with boilerplate methods, as well as struct definition, and corresponding field tags like:

type Review struct {
	Title  string   `json:"title"`
	Body   string   `json:"body"`
	Rating int      `json:"rating"`
}

The generate command will intelligently parse more sophisticated field names such as 'field_name' and convert it to 'FieldName' and vice versa, only where appropriate as per common Go idioms. Errors will be reported, but successful generate commands return nothing.

Input View Specifiers (optional)

The CLI can optionally parse a third parameter on the fields provided to generate the type of HTML view an editor field is presented within. If no third parameter is added, a plain text HTML input will be generated. In the example above, the argument shown as body:string:richtext would show the Richtext input instead of a plain text HTML input (as shown in the screenshot). The following input view specifiers are implemented:

build

From within your kudzu project directory, running build will copy and move the necessary files from your workspace into the vendored directory, and will build/compile the project to then be run.

Optional flags:

• --gocmd sets the binary used when executing go build within kudzu build step

Example:

$ kudzu build
(or)
$ kudzu build --gocmd=go1.8rc1 # useful for testing

Errors will be reported, but successful build commands return nothing.

run

Starts the HTTP server for the JSON API, Admin System, or both. The segments, separated by a comma, describe which services to start, either 'admin' (Admin System / CMS backend) or 'api' (JSON API), and, optionally, if the server should utilize TLS encryption - served over HTTPS, which is automatically managed using Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org)

Optional flags:

• --port sets the port on which the server listens for HTTP requests [defaults to 8080]
• --https-port sets the port on which the server listens for HTTPS requests [defaults to 443]
• --https enables auto HTTPS management via Let's Encrypt (port is always 443)
• --dev-https generates self-signed SSL certificates for development-only (port is 10443)

Example:

$ kudzu run
(or)
$ kudzu run --port=8080 --https admin,api
(or)
$ kudzu run admin
(or)
$ kudzu run --port=8888 api
(or)
$ kudzu run --dev-https

Defaults to $ kudzu run --port=8080 admin,api (running Admin & API on port 8080, without TLS)

Note: Admin and API cannot run on separate processes unless you use a copy of the database, since the first process to open it receives a lock. If you intend to run the Admin and API on separate processes, you must call them with the 'kudzu' command independently.

upgrade

Will backup your own custom project code (like content, add-ons, uploads, etc) so we can safely re-clone kudzu from the latest version you have or from the network if necessary. Before running $ kudzu upgrade, you should update the kudzu package by running $ go get -u github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu/...

Example:

$ kudzu upgrade

add, a

Downloads an add-on to GOPATH/src and copies it to the kudzu project's ./addons directory. Must be called from within a kudzu project directory.

Example:

$ kudzu add github.com/bosssauce/fbscheduler

Errors will be reported, but successful add commands return nothing.

version, v

Prints the version of kudzu your project is using. Must be called from within a kudzu project directory. By passing the --cli flag, the version command will print the version of the kudzu CLI you have installed.

Example:

$ kudzu version
> kudzu v0.8.2
(or)
$ kudzu version --cli
> kudzu v0.9.2

Contributing

1. Checkout branch kudzu-dev
2. Make code changes
3. Test changes to kudzu-dev branch
   • make a commit to kudzu-dev
   • to manually test, you will need to use a new copy (kudzu new path/to/code), but pass the --dev flag so that kudzu generates a new copy from the kudzu-dev branch, not master by default (i.e. $kudzu new --dev /path/to/code)
   • build and run with $ kudzu build and $ kudzu run
4. To add back to master:
   • first push to origin kudzu-dev
   • create a pull request
   • will then be merged into master

A typical contribution workflow might look like:

# clone the repository and checkout kudzu-dev
$ git clone https://github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu path/to/local/kudzu # (or your fork)
$ git checkout kudzu-dev

# install kudzu with go get or from your own local path
$ go get github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu/...
# or
$ cd /path/to/local/kudzu
$ go install ./...

# edit files, add features, etc
$ git add -A
$ git commit -m 'edited files, added features, etc'

# now you need to test the feature.. make a new kudzu project, but pass --dev flag
$ kudzu new --dev /path/to/new/project # will create $GOPATH/src/path/to/new/project

# build & run kudzu from the new project directory
$ cd /path/to/new/project
$ kudzu build && kudzu run

# push to your origin:kudzu-dev branch and create a PR at kudzu-cms/kudzu
$ git push origin kudzu-dev
# ... go to https://github.com/kudzu-cms/kudzu and create a PR

Note: if you intend to work on your own fork and contribute from it, you will need to also pass --fork=path/to/your/fork (using OS-standard filepath structure), where path/to/your/fork must be within $GOPATH/src, and you are working from a branch called kudzu-dev.

For example:

# ($GOPATH/src is implied in the fork path, do not add it yourself)
$ kudzu new --dev --fork=github.com/nilslice/kudzu /path/to/new/project

Credits

• golang.org/x/text/unicode/norm
• golang.org/x/text/transform
• golang.org/x/crypto/bcrypt
• golang.org/x/net/http2
• github.com/blevesearch/bleve
• github.com/nilslice/jwt
• github.com/nilslice/email
• github.com/gorilla/schema
• github.com/gofrs/uuid
• github.com/tidwall/gjson
• github.com/tidwall/sjson
• github.com/boltdb/bolt
• github.com/spf13/cobra
• Materialnote Editor
• Materialize.css
• jQuery
• Chart.js

Logo

The Go gopher was designed by Renee French. (http://reneefrench.blogspot.com) The design is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Read this article for more details: http://blog.golang.org/gopher

The Go gopher vector illustration by Hugo Arganda @argandas (http://about.me/argandas)

"Gotoro", the sushi chef, is a modification of Hugo Arganda's illustration by Steve Manuel (https://github.com/nilslice).