@nodeboot/aot
🧠 Ahead-of-Time (AOT) support for the Node-Boot framework — enabling faster startup, intelligent component scanning, and OpenAPI-ready model schemas.
✨ Overview
@nodeboot/aot provides a set of tools and decorators to optimize Node-Boot apps for production, by shifting expensive runtime operations to build-time via Ahead-of-Time (AOT) processing.
It includes:
-
🔍 Bean Scanner & Generator (node-boot-aot-beans.js)
Scans compiled files for decorators like @Service, @Controller, etc., and generates a precomputed node-boot-beans.json.
-
📦 Component Scanner Decorator (@EnableComponentScan)
Automatically imports application components at runtime from the prebuilt manifest or falls back to dynamic scanning.
-
🧬 Model Schema Generator (node-boot-aot-models.js)
Converts @Model-decorated classes into OpenAPI-compatible JSON Schemas.
📦 Installation
npm install @nodeboot/aot --save-dev
⚙️ Usage Guide
1. 🧠 Generate AOT Beans Metadata
After building your app (tsc), run the AOT bean scanner to precompile metadata for your components:
node node-boot-aot-beans.js
Add to package.json:
{
"scripts": {
"postbuild": "node node-boot-aot-beans.js"
}
}
This will output dist/node-boot-beans.json — a list of all .js files that contain key decorators such as @Service, @Controller, etc.
2. 🧬 Generate OpenAPI JSON Schemas from @Model Classes
To convert all @Model-decorated classes into OpenAPI-compatible schema:
node node-boot-aot-models.js
This will generate:
dist/node-boot-models.json — structured like:
{
"$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",
"components": {
"schemas": {
"UserModel": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"id": {"type": "string"},
"name": {"type": "string"}
}
}
}
}
}
🔁 All-in-One Runner
Runs both scripts in one go. Ideal for post-build automation.
node node-boot-aot.js
💡 Suggested in package.json:
{
"scripts": {
"postbuild": "node node-boot-aot.js"
}
}
🧠 Runtime Integration
In your main application class, use the @EnableComponentScan() decorator to bootstrap bean registration:
import {EnableComponentScan} from "@nodeboot/aot";
@EnableComponentScan()
@NodeBootApplication()
export class MyApp implements NodeBootApp {
start(): Promise<NodeBootAppView> {
return NodeBoot.run(ExpressServer);
}
}
Optional: Use Custom Decorators
@EnableComponentScan({
customDecorators: [MyCustomBean, AnotherDecorator]
})
✅ Automatically resolves the dist/ directory in production and performs active scanning in dev (or if no JSON file is found).
📁 Directory Expectations
src/ | Your TypeScript source files |
dist/ | Compiled output after tsc |
.json | Output files: node-boot-beans.json, node-boot-models.json |
🛠 Internals
Scripts
-
node-boot-aot-beans.js:
Scans compiled JS files for known decorators (@Service, @Controller, etc.) and generates node-boot-beans.json.
-
node-boot-aot-models.js:
Scans @Model()-decorated classes and generates a JSON Schema file (node-boot-models.json).
-
node-boot-cycle-detector.js:
Detects circular dependencies in the bean graph, ensuring no infinite loops in component/service resolution.
-
node-boot-aot.js:
Combines all AOT scripts into a single runner for convenience.
Decorator
@EnableComponentScan(options?: { customDecorators?: Function[] }):
Scans and imports bean modules based on decorators. Uses prebuilt JSON for performance when available.
✅ Benefits
- Fast Startup: Avoids expensive runtime filesystem scans in production.
- Predictable Component Importing: Always imports only what’s required.
- OpenAPI-Ready: JSON schema generation for API modeling & docs.
- Flexible: Supports custom decorators and intelligent fallbacks.
🔮 Future Ideas
- CLI interface for all AOT operations
- Watch mode for development
- Decorator metadata validation
👨💻 Author
Manuel Santos
📧 ney.br.santos@gmail.com
🌐 GitHub
📝 License
MIT — feel free to use, modify, and contribute.