🔌 WebLocal - Instant, Isolated localhost environment in your web

About | Example | Motivation

About

Open source implemention of StackBlitz and CodeSandBox's ServiceWorker-based loopback emulator (iframe only).

Example

Simple web server | Hono in browser

Simple web server

// From Client JavaScript!

import { serve } from "weblocal";

const server = await serve(() => new Response("<h1>Hello!</h1>", { headers: { "Content-Type": "text/html" } }));

previewFrame.src = server.url // directly put into in-context iframe

Hono in browser

import { Hono } from "hono";
import { serve } from "weblocal";

const app = new Hono();

app.get("/", c => c.text("Hello Hono!"));

const server = await serve(app.fetch);

Usage

npm i weblocal

Motivation

Developers have long used object URLs and data URLs to display user-defined documentation in serverless environments. This is the basic technique used by major technical sites such as MDN to display example implementations and has been used in all demos for a long time. Unfortunately, however, this technique does not allow the use of HTTPS-specific APIs, making it impossible to demonstrate the most advanced web technologies (WebGPU, FileSystem, etc.).

To run user-defined documents in an HTTPS environment, leading online IDEs StackBlitz and CodeSandBox have incorporated a “bypass” system into their own services using ServiceWorker and MessageChannel. This technique is memory efficient and has less overhead than using Object URLs. Despite its convenience, due to the competitive nature of the online IDE market, companies are keeping their sources private.

So, as an individual web developer, I reinvented the wheel as an open source low-level implementation, using CloudFlare's stunning CDN and edge computing system.

License

WebLocal is MIT licensed.