tinystruct Development Patterns

Architecture and implementation patterns for building modules with the tinystruct Java framework – a lightweight, high-performance framework that treats CLI and HTTP as equal citizens, requiring no main() method and minimal configuration.

Core Principle

CLI and HTTP are equal citizens. Every method annotated with @Action should ideally be runnable from both a terminal and a web browser without modification. This "dual-mode" capability is the core design philosophy of tinystruct.

Primary Development Tool: bin/dispatcher

bin/dispatcher is the default, highest-priority tool for developing, running, testing, and debugging a tinystruct application — reach for it before an IDE run configuration, a hand-written main(), curl, or a browser. Because every @Action is dual-mode by design, bin/dispatcher lets you exercise routing, argument binding, and business logic directly from the terminal, with the fastest possible feedback loop and no server/browser required.

# Run any @Action directly - the fastest way to verify a new action works
# (the class must be imported; see --import or default.import.applications in application.properties)
bin/dispatcher greet/James --import com.example.MyService
bin/dispatcher echo --words "Praise the Lord"