rblog

A Rust port of the Halo blog platform. Single binary, MySQL or SQLite, server-side rendered
public site, React admin SPA, full-text search, and a capability-gated
WebAssembly plugin runtime. Here is a living example: https://blog.xiedeacc.com.

The on-disk schema is wire-compatible with Halo's extensions table so existing Halo databases can be pointed at rblog without migration.

┌──────────────────────────┐
│  Browser (public + SSR)  │
│  Browser (admin SPA)     │
└────────────┬─────────────┘
             │ HTTP/JSON
             ▼
┌──────────────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────────────────┐
│  rblog (single binary)   │     │  WASM plugins               │
│  ─ Axum router           │◄────┤  wasmtime + capability gate │
│  ─ MiniJinja SSR         │     └─────────────────────────────┘
│  ─ Tantivy search index  │
│  ─ Embedded SPA (opt-in) │
└────┬────────────┬────────┘
     │            │
     ▼            ▼
 ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐
 │ SQLite  │  │ MySQL 8 │   (pick one — same `extensions` schema)
 └─────────┘  └─────────┘

Quickstart

# 1. Build everything (admin SPA + binary with embedded SPA).
cd admin && pnpm install && pnpm run build && cd ..
cargo build --release --bin rblog --features rblog-http/embed-admin

# 2. Run with an ephemeral SQLite database.
./target/release/rblog
#   listening on 127.0.0.1:8080
#   • public site:  http://127.0.0.1:8080/
#   • admin UI:     http://127.0.0.1:8080/admin/
#   • OpenAPI JSON: http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/admin/openapi.json

# 3. First-run bootstrap: open /admin/ and create the initial admin user.

Docker

docker compose up --build

docker-compose.yaml boots a MySQL 8 sidecar and the rblog binary with the SPA baked in (--features embed-admin). Use plain docker run -p 8080:8080 rblog:latest for SQLite-only mode.

Config

rblog.toml (or environment variables, prefix RBLOG__, __ = section nesting). See [rblog.example.toml](./rblog.example.toml) for the full list. The most common knobs:

Setting	Default	Description
server.bind	127.0.0.1:8080	TCP listen address.
database.url	sqlite::memory:	sqlite:./rblog.db or mysql://user:pass@host:3306/rblog.
paths.themes_root	./themes	MiniJinja templates + static assets.
paths.uploads_root	./uploads	Local attachment store (storage.backend = "local").
paths.search_root	./search-index	Persistent Tantivy directory.
paths.plugins_root	./plugins	One subdirectory per WASM plugin.
paths.admin_dist	unset	Disk fallback for the admin SPA when the binary is not built with embed-admin.

Repository layout

crates/
  rblog-scheme/     Group/Version/Kind schema, store-name codec.
  rblog-store/     SQLx pool, migrations, `extensions` table CRUD.
  rblog-content/   Domain content types (Post, Tag, Category, …).
  rblog-index/    In-memory secondary index + filter/sort/paginate.
  rblog-search/   Tantivy-backed full-text search.
  rblog-auth/     Argon2 password hashing + session helpers.
  rblog-attachments/  Image/upload pipeline (local + S3 backends).
  rblog-theme/    Theme registry, default theme installer.
  rblog-core/    Service layer (Posts, Comments, Settings, etc.).
  rblog-plugins/  WASM plugin runtime (wasmtime + capability sandbox).
  rblog-http/    Axum app, OpenAPI, routes, error mapping.
  rblog/         Binary entrypoint (cargo run --bin rblog).
admin/            React 19 + Vite admin SPA (Ant Design + Lexical).
examples/plugins/ Example plugins (hello-world WAT).

Features

Server-side rendering

• Public site rendered with MiniJinja. The default theme is bundled in rblog-theme/default/ and installed into paths.themes_root on first boot.
• The theme can be swapped by dropping a different directory under paths.themes_root and selecting it from the admin UI.

Admin SPA

• React 19 + Vite + TypeScript + Ant Design 5 + Lexical editor.
• Two serving modes:
  1. Embedded (--features embed-admin): the entire SPA is baked into the binary via rust-embed. No filesystem dependency.
  2. Disk-served: set paths.admin_dist = "/path/to/admin/dist" to serve a freshly-built bundle from disk; ideal for development when iterating on the SPA.
• The Vite dev server (cd admin && pnpm run dev) proxies /api and /uploads to http://127.0.0.1:8080, so you can run the SPA and the backend side-by-side.

Full-text search

• Tantivy index seeded from the store on first boot and kept in lockstep with admin create/update/publish/delete via crates/rblog-http/src/search_sync.rs.
• Public endpoints: GET /search (themed HTML) and GET /api/search?q=… (JSON).
• Admin: POST /api/admin/system/search/rebuild (also exposed in the dashboard).

WASM plugin runtime

• Each plugin lives in <plugins_root>/<name>/ with a plugin.toml manifest plus a plugin.wasm (or plugin.wat) module.
• Capability allow-list: log, kv, http, posts:read, settings:read. Anything not declared in the manifest traps at the host import boundary.
• ABI documented in [crates/rblog-plugins/src/abi.rs](crates/rblog-plugins/src/abi.rs). Plugins export memory, alloc, and handle(method, path, body) -> packed_ptr_len. The runtime returns a JSON response that the HTTP layer surfaces verbatim under /api/plugins/<name>/*.
• Admin endpoints under /api/admin/plugins/* and a Plugins page in the admin SPA cover enable/disable/reload and capability inspection.
• See [examples/plugins/](examples/plugins/) for a runnable example (hello-world, written in raw WAT — no toolchain required).

Development

# Rust
cargo fmt --all
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

# Admin SPA
cd admin
pnpm install
pnpm run dev          # http://127.0.0.1:5173
pnpm run typecheck
pnpm run build        # writes admin/dist/

CI mirrors the same commands on every push / pull-request — see [.github/workflows/ci.yaml](.github/workflows/ci.yaml). The mysql job spins up a MySQL 8 service container and runs the workspace tests against it.

License

Apache-2.0. The bundled theme assets are MIT (see crates/rblog-theme/default/LICENSE).