inject

A minimal dependency injection library. Functions declare what they need where they need it; you supply it once, at the top.

Services and injectables

A service is a typed key for a resource — a database, config, a logger.

type Database = { find(id: string): User };
const Database = createTag<Database, "Database">({ key: "Database" });

An injectable is a generator that requests services with yield*. yield* Database pauses the generator until the Database is supplied, then resumes with it.

function* getUser(id: string) {
  const db = yield* Database;
  return db.find(id);
}

Injectables compose. yield* one inside another and their requests merge, so getFullName inherits getUser's Database without naming it.

function* getFullName(id: string) {
  const user = yield* getUser(id); // inherits Database
  return `${user.firstName} ${user.lastName}`;
}

Running

inject(injectable, bindings) runs an injectable, supplies every service it requests, and returns a Promise of the result. Each service needs exactly one binding; a missing one is a compile error.

const user = await inject(getFullName("u1"), [provideValue(Database, db)]);

Bindings

A binding supplies one service.

provideValue(S, value) — a value.

provideValue(Database, db);

provide(S, builder) — a value built from other services. The builder is itself an injectable, so it requests with yield*. Built lazily, once per run — a singleton.

provide(Database, function* () {
  const config = yield* Config;
  return new Database(config.url);
});

contribute(S, builder) · contributeValue(S, value) — a fragment of a collection. A service bound this way resolves to all fragments concatenated, in binding order.

const Routes = createTag<readonly Route[], "Routes">({ key: "Routes" });

await inject(app(), [
  contributeValue(Routes, [{ path: "/api" }]),
  contributeValue(Routes, [{ path: "/admin" }]),
]); // Routes → [{ path: "/api" }, { path: "/admin" }]

Defaults

A service can carry its own value, used when no binding covers it — then it is no longer required. Pass a fixed defaultValue, or a default injectable that requests its own services.

const Logger = createTag({ key: "Logger", defaultValue: console });

const Database = createTag({
  key: "Database",
  default: function* () {
    const config = yield* Config;
    return new Database(config.url);
  },
});

ifExists(S, bindings)

Apply bindings only when something else provides S; otherwise drop them. Conditions resolve to a fixpoint, so one ifExists can enable another.

await inject(app(), [
  provideValue(Database, db),
  ifExists(Database, [provideValue(Cache, cache)]), // applied; dropped without Database
]);

Contexts

A context is a stack of binding layers. Resolving a service searches the stack innermost-first: inner layers shadow outer ones, and a service a layer doesn't bind falls through to the layers above. inject is the common case — one layer, run to completion. These tools build and reuse the stack.

injectLayer(injectable, bindings) — apply some bindings now, return an injectable for the rest. When a runner finally drives it, it stacks its bindings as a layer on top of that runner's context. Still-missing services stay in the type.

const partial = injectLayer(getFullName("u1"), [provideValue(Database, db)]);
const user = await inject(partial, [provideValue(Logger, logger)]);

Because it is a layer, its bindings shadow those below and its contributions are local to it. Singletons are shared across the whole stack.

runPromise(injectable, context?) — run against a context, defaulting to empty. inject(source, bindings) is runPromise(injectLayer(source, bindings)) plus a compile-time check that nothing is missing.

Grab the current context with yield* Context and run another injectable against it — reusing its bindings and the singletons already built in them, with nothing threaded through.

provide(Handler, function* () {
  const ctx = yield* Context; // the current stack
  return { run: (input) => runPromise(handle(input), ctx) };
});

runSync(injectable, context?) — like runPromise but returns the value directly. Throws if it reaches any async work (an async function* source, an async builder, an awaited value).