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Architecture

This section describes the overall architecture of Theia.

Theia is designed to work as a native desktop application as well as in the context of a browser and a remote server. To support both situations with a single source, Theia runs in two separate processes. Those processes are called frontend and backend respectively, and they communicate through JSON-RPC messages over WebSockets or REST APIs over HTTP. In the case of Electron, the backend, as well as the frontend, run locally, while in a remote context the backend would run on a remote host.

Both the frontend and backend processes have their dependency injection (DI) container (see below) to which extensions can contribute.

Frontend

The frontend process represents the client and renders the UI. In the browser, it simply runs in the rendering loop, while in Electron it runs in an Electron Window, which basically is a browser with additional Electron and Node.js APIs. Therefore, any frontend code may assume browser as a platform but not Node.js.

The startup of the frontend process will first load the DI modules of all contributing extensions before it obtains an instance of FrontendApplication and call start() on it.

Backend

The backend process runs on Node.js. We use express as the HTTP server. It may not use any code that requires a browser (DOM API) as the platform.

The startup of the backend application will first load the DI modules of all contributing extensions before it obtains an instance of BackendApplication and calls start(portNumber) on it.

By default the backend's express server also serves the code for the frontend.

Separation By Platform

In an extension's top folder we have an additional layer of folders to separate by platform:

  • The common folder contains code that doesn't depend on any runtime.
  • The browser folder contains code requiring a modern browser as a platform (DOM API).
  • The electron-browser folder contains frontend code that requires DOM API as well as Electron renderer-process specific APIs.
  • The node folder contains (backend) code requiring Node.js as a platform.
  • The node-electron folder contains (backend) code specific for Electron.

Dependency Injection (DI)

Theia uses the DI framework Inversify.js to wire up the different components.

DI decouples a components from creating its dependencies. Instead, it gets them injected on creation (as parameters of a constructor). A DI container does the creation for you, based on some configuration you provide on startup through so-called container modules.

For instance, the Navigator widget needs access to a FileSystem to present folders and files in a tree. With DI the concretion of that FileSystem interface is not important to the Navigator widget. It can safely assume that an object consistent with the FileSystem interface is ready to use. In Theia, the used FileSystem concretion is just a proxy sending JSON-RPC messages to the backend, so it needs a particular configuration and treatment. The navigator doesn't need to care as it will get injected a fully working FileSystem instance.

Moreover, this decoupling of construction and use, allows extensions to provide their very specific implementations of e.g. a FileSystem if needed. Still without touching any users of the FileSystem interface.

DI is an integral part of Theia. Therefore, we highly recommend learning at least the basics of Inversify.js.

Extensions

Theia is composed of extensions. An extension is an npm package that exposes any number of DI modules (ContainerModule) that contribute to the creation of the DI container.

At the moment an extension is consumed by adding a dependency to the npm-package and then reference the exposed DI modules in the startup script (see main.ts). In the future, we will automate the creation of the application, based on metadata in the package.json of an extension. Extensions can be installed/uninstalled at runtime, which will trigger a recompilation and restart.

Through a DI module, the extension can provide bindings from types to concrete implementations, i.e. provide services and contributions.

Services

A service is just a binding for other components to use. For instance, one extension could expose the SelectionService so that others can get an instance injected and use it.

Contribution-Points

If an extension wants to provide a hook for others to contribute to, they should define a contribution-point. A contribution-point is just an interface that many others can implement. The extension will delegate to them when needed.

The OpenerService, for instance, defines a contribution point to allow others registering OpenHandlers. You can have a look at the code here.

Theia comes with an extensive list of contribution points already. A good way to see what contribution points exist is to do a find references on bindContributionProvider.

See also

For a high level overview of Theia's Architecture, see this document:

Multi-Language IDE Implemented in JS - Scope and Architecture