tonic.js

tonic helps to build scheduled or event based job pipelines using JavaScript. It can be used to build a system of triggers similar to IFTTT but with more complex logic utilizing any data source and boolean operations.

Imagine you wanted to text yourself whenever your favorite team scores a goal. You could write a series of functions which: poll a sports API every 30 seconds and if there is a change in the score reformat the response from the API and then send a text message to your phone number. tonic allows you to write a complex system of functions in a modular and reusable way.

Example Uses

Data driven websites

tomrudick.com, api.tomrudick.com, and ellenchisa.com all use tonic to display near-real-time data that is automatically updated.

You can get examples of specific jobs here or here.

Home automation

The hue-weather-lights project uses tonic to change the colors of Philips Hue lightbulbs based on local weather conditions.

Have another usecase?

Getting Started

Before you get started, you must already have node.js installed.

Installing

$ npm install tonic --save

This will install tonic into your project and save it as a dependency in your package.json.

Create a New Application

Create a file called app.js.

var tonic = require('tonic');

var app = tonic();
app.jobs('jobs'); // A directory called jobs must exist
app.start();

This application won't do anything yet since we haven't defined any jobs.

Writing a Job

Create a new file in the jobs directory with a .js extension.

job('EveryMinute', function(done) {
  console.log('Running...');
}).every('1min');

This will create a new job that executes once every minute.

Running

$ node app.js

This will run all registered jobs. You should see Running... printed out to the console once every minute.

Chaining Jobs

Create another file in the jobs directory with a .js extension.

job('RandomGenerator', function(done) {
  var rnd = Math.random();

  done(rnd);
}).every('10 seconds');

job('RandomPrinter', function(done, rnd) {
  console.log('Random:', rnd);
}).after('RandomGenerator');

Now, rerun app.js and you should now see a random number printed to the console every 10 seconds.

In this example, RandomGenerator will run every second and RandomPrinter will be run after RandomGenerator completes. The done callback is used to denote that a job has completely successfully. If there are no dependent jobs, calling done is optional.

Extensions

• tonic-hbs - Extension to output the results of jobs running via Handlebars templates. Useful for creating dynamic websites or other dynamic content.