Spin Factors SIP

docs/content/sips/0xx-spin-factors.md

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+title = "SIP 0XX - Spin Factors"
+template = "main"
+date = "2024-05-20T12:00:00Z"
+
+---
+
+Summary: Refactor Spin Runtime Functionality with "Factors"
+
+Owner: lann.martin@fermyon.com
+
+Created: May 20, 2024
+
+## Background
+
+Spin 1.0 shipped with a mechanism for extending the runtime environment with
+loosely-coupled host functionality called "host components". As Spin has
+evolved, more and more runtime functionality has fallen outside of the scope of
+this mechanism, leading to the code for these features spreading out over the
+Spin codebase. This not only makes it hard to read and understand these features
+but also raises the bar for unfamiliar developers trying to add new features.
+
+Separately, the introduction of the SpinKube project has made it clear that
+there will be (at least) two major embeddings of the Spin runtime environment:
+the Spin CLI (`spin up`) and SpinKube (`containerd-shim-spin`). In order to
+provide better integration into the Kubernetes ecosystem, some runtime feature
+implementations will diverge between these embeddings, making the loose coupling
+of features even more important.
+
+## Proposal
+
+The basic inversion of control approach used by `HostComponent`s will be
+redesigned and expanded into a new system called Spin Factors, where independent
+feature sets are organized into individual "factors". Some of the goals of this
+new system:
+
+- Expand the set integration points that a factor can use to hook into the
+  lifecycle of an application request. These will be driven by feature
+  requirements and may include e.g.:
+  - Runtime startup
+  - Application initialization
+  - Runtime config parsing
+  - Component pre-instantiation
+  - Component instantiation
+  - Cleanup (post-execution)
+
+- Allow loosely-coupled dependencies between "factors" (features). In order to
+  simplify implementation and reasoning about these dependencies the dependency
+  graph must be acyclic.
+
+## Implementation Plan
+
+The overall implementation plan will be to:
+
+1. Introduce a new `spin-factors` crate containing the basic framework.
+
+2. Refactor existing Spin features (mostly existing `HostComponent`s) to use
+   this new framework.
+   - Framework features will be developed as needed to support this refactoring.
+
+3. Refactor `spin-core`, `spin-trigger`, etc. to use `spin-factors`.
+   - Depending on subjective evaluation at this point, possibly merge
+   `spin-core` and `spin-factors`.
+
+## Implementation Details
+
+Based on initial prototyping, the following Rust types represent the starting
+point for `spin-factors` (note that some type details are elided for clarity):
+
+```rust
+pub trait Factor {
+    // Runtime configuration
+    type RuntimeConfig;
+    // Application-wide state; may be reused between instances
+    type AppState;
+    // Builds instance state
+    type InstanceBuilder: FactorInstanceBuilder;
+
+    // Init is the runtime startup lifecycle hook.
+    //
+    // The `InitContext` type here gives the factor the ability to update global
+    // engine configuration, most notably the `Linker`. This takes the place of
+    // `HostComponent::add_to_linker`.
+    fn init(&mut self, ctx: InitContext) -> Result<()> {
+        Ok(())
+    }
+
+    // Validates application configuration and prepares AppState.
+    //
+    // Takes the place of `DynamicHostComponent::validate_app`.
+    fn configure_app(&self, ctx: ConfigureAppContext) -> Result<Self::AppState>;
+
+    // Prepares InstanceState. This can access other Factors' InstanceBuilders
+    // to implement inter-factor dependencies.
+    fn prepare(
+      &self,
+      ctx: PrepareContext,
+      builders: &mut InstanceBuilders,
+    ) --> Result<Self::InstanceBuilder>
+}
+
+pub trait FactorInstanceBuilder {
+  // Per-instance state, equivalent to `HostComponent::Data`.
+  type InstanceState;
+
+  // Builds the InstanceState.
+  //
+  // Takes the place of `HostComponent::build_data` and
+  // `DynamicHostComponent::update_data`.
+  fn build(self) -> Result<Self::InstanceState>;
+}
+```