/modus

Modus: an open source, serverless framework for building intelligent functions and APIs, powered by WebAssembly

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modus

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Modus is an open-source, serverless framework for building APIs powered by WebAssembly. It simplifies integrating AI models, data, and business logic with sandboxed execution. And, it's really fast.

We built Modus to put code back at the heart of development.

You write a function.

export function sayHello(name: string): string {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`;
}

Then, Modus:

  • extracts the metadata of your functions
  • compiles your code with optimizations based on the host environment
  • caches the compiled module in memory for fast retrieval
  • prepares an invocation plan for each function
  • extracts connections, models, and other configuration details from the app’s manifest
  • generates an API schema and activates the endpoint

You query the endpoint

query SayHello {
  sayHello(name: "World")
}

In a few milliseconds, Modus:

  • loads your compiled code into a sandboxed execution environment with a dedicated memory space
  • runs your code, aided by host functions that power the Modus APIs
  • securely queries data and AI models as needed, without exposing credentials to your code
  • responds via the API result and releases the execution environment

Now you have a production ready scalable endpoint for your AI-enabled app. AI-ready when you’re ready. Launch and iterate.

Quickstart

Install the Modus CLI

npm install -g @hypermode/modus-cli

Initialize your Modus app

modus new

Run your app locally with fast refresh

modus dev

Demo

Modus Demo

What's it good for?

We designed Modus primarily as a general-purpose framework, it just happens to treat models as a first-class component. With Modus you can use models, as appropriate, without additional complexity.

Modus is optimized for applications that require sub-second response times. We’ve made trade-offs to prioritize speed and simplicity.

Programming Languages

Since Modus is based on WebAssembly, you can write Modus apps in various programming languages. Each language offers the full capabilities of the Modus framework.

Currently, the supported languages you may choose from are:

  • AssemblyScript - A TypeScript-like language designed for WebAssembly.

    • If you are primarily used to writing front-end web apps, you'll feel at home with AssemblyScript.

  • Go - A general-purpose programming language originally designed by Google.

    • If you are primarily used to writing back-end apps, you'll likely prefer to use Go.

Additional programming languages may be supported in the future.

Hosting

We have designed Hypermode to be the best place to run your Modus app. Hypermode hosting plans include features you might expect, such as support, telemetry, and high availability. They also include specialty features such as model hosting that are purposefully designed to work in tandem with Modus apps.

As Modus is a free, open-source framework, you’re welcome to run your Modus apps on your own hardware or on any hosting platform that meets your needs.

Open Source

Modus is developed by Hypermode as an open-source project, integral but independent from Hypermode.

We welcome external contributions. See the CONTRIBUTING.md file if you would like to get involved.

Acknowledgements

It's taken a lot of hard work to bring Modus to life, but we couldn't have done it alone. Modus is built upon many open source components and projects. We'd especially like to express our gratitude to the authors and teams of our core dependencies:

  • Takeshi Yoneda, author of Wazero, and other contributors to the Wazero project - and to Tetrate for continuing its support of Wazero. Modus uses Wazero to execute WebAssembly modules.
  • Jens Neuse, Stefan Avram, and the rest of the team at Wundergraph. Modus uses Wundergraph's GraphQL Go Tools library to process incoming GraphQL API requests.
  • Max Graey, Daniel Wirtz, and other contributors to the AssemblyScript project. Modus chose AssemblyScript as one of its core languages because it is ideal for web developers getting started with Web Assembly.
  • The Go language team, and also the maintainers of TinyGo. The Modus Runtime is written in Go, and the Modus Go SDK uses TinyGo.

License

Modus and its components are Copyright 2024 Hypermode Inc., and licensed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the LICENSE file for a complete copy of the license.

If you have any questions about Modus licensing, or need an alternate license or other arrangement, please contact us at hello@hypermode.com.