Re-architect Library to make more friendly for re-use

[zzolo]

Library is great, thanks for the awesome project. This is a large critique, but it is meant with the best of intentions. I fully understand that you all did not initially design this with a larger user-base outside NYT in mind.

Problem Description

Currently there is not really a great separation of the application, deployment, and customization, which makes it hard to manage those aspects well.

Though customization is possible with the custom/ directory, it could be improved. I would like to manage where my customization and options in a more directive way.

Managing the specific version of the Library application is difficult depending on how I deploy it. I'd like to be able to be more explicit about what version of the Library code I am using.

I am also bit confused on how I would locally test my own library without using the library codebase directly.

Feature

Redesign Library to be a dependency of a Node project, such that using it would be something like:

const library = require('library');
library.config({ customizations: 'path/to/customizations' });
library.start();

Or, you could design it as a command line tool with a configuration focus with a file, such as .library.json. It could assume the current directory is the customization library.

Or both, where the core application is a dependency of a command line tool.

Then deployment can be handled in many different ways and most appropriate for each user.

I don't think the project is that far off from this approach, but would definitely require a bit of effort. If you all are interested in exploring it, I could try to draft a pull request.

Additional Information

Projects that I think do similar things well:

• documentation.js
• Storybook
• docsify

[afischer]

Hey @zzolo, thanks for the suggestions — really like some of these ideas and customization patterns and it's definitely worth having a larger conversation about extensibility and customization.