asok 0.4.0

A minimalist Python web framework with minimal external dependencies.

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Asok is a cohesive, full-stack Python web framework designed for developer speed, elegant architecture, and security-conscious defaults. Built around a "zero-runtime-dependency" philosophy, it unifies server-side logic and client-side reactivity into a single, high-performance package, offering a streamlined development experience from the first line of code.

🌐 Official Website & Documentation | 📖 Quick Start Guide | 💬 Join Discord | 🎥 YouTube Tutorials

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🎯 Why Asok?

Zero Runtime Dependencies, Maximum Power

Asok requires no external runtime dependencies - just Python 3.10+. No Werkzeug, no Jinja2, no SQLAlchemy. The core framework is built from the Python standard library, making it:

• ✅ Extremely lightweight (~360KB)
• ✅ Easy to audit (everything in one codebase, no hidden dependencies)
• ✅ Forever stable (no dependency hell or supply chain risks)

Modern Developer Experience

# File-based routing like Next.js
src/pages/blog/[slug]/page.py  →  /blog/hello-world

# Client-side Reactivity
<div asok-state="{ count: 0 }">
  <button asok-on:click="count++" asok-text="count"></button>
</div>

# WebSocket Sync
class Counter(Component):
    count = 0

    @exposed
    def increment(self):
        self.count += 1

    def render(self):
        return self.html("counter.html")

# Admin interface in 2 lines
admin = Admin(app)

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✨ Key Features

Core Framework

• 💎 Full Type Hints - Complete PEP 484 support for IDE autocomplete
• ⌨️ Powerful CLI - Scaffolding, migrations, dev server, production builds
• 🛣️ File-based Routing - Next.js-style routing (src/pages/ → URLs)
• ⛓️ Dynamic Routes - Parameters via [id], [slug:slug] patterns

Database & ORM

• 🗄️ Built-in ORM - SQLite (default), PostgreSQL, and MySQL support with relations, migrations, soft deletes
• 🔍 Full-Text Search - FTS5/FULLTEXT integration for lightning-fast search
• 🔐 Auto Password Hashing - PBKDF2-SHA256 with 600,000 iterations
• 📊 Query Builder - Fluent API with eager loading

Templates & Frontend

• 🎨 Template Engine - Jinja-compatible with inheritance and macros
• ⚡ Reactive Components - Client-side reactivity (< 3KB, no build step)
• 🔄 Live Components - Server-driven real-time updates via WebSockets
• 💨 HTML Streaming - Chunked responses for instant TTFB
• 🎭 Transitions - Built-in fade/slide/scale animations

High-Performance APIs

• 🔌 Native API Engine - Build robust REST APIs with minimal code
• 📑 Auto-OpenAPI - Automatic OpenAPI 3.0 (Swagger) generation for every route
• 🛡️ Bearer Token Auth - Built-in secure authentication for stateless clients
• ⚡ Optimized JSON - High-speed serialization for high-throughput services
• 📑 Live Documentation - Interactive API explorer (Swagger UI) included

Security

• 🔒 CSRF Protection - Auto-rotation, HMAC validation, SameSite=Strict
• 🔒 XSS Prevention - Auto-escaping templates, CSP nonces
• 🔒 SQL Injection - Parameterized queries, column validation
• 🔒 Secure Sessions - HttpOnly, Secure flags, HMAC-signed
• 🔒 Path Traversal - Absolute path validation
• 🔒 OWASP Top 10 - Built-in protections for common web vulnerabilities

Admin & Developer Tools

• 👨‍💼 Auto Admin - Django-inspired admin in 2 lines of code
• 🌍 i18n Ready - Multi-language support with JSON translations
• 📧 Email Service - SMTP integration with templates
• 📦 Production Build - Bytecode compilation, minification, WebP conversion
• 🧪 Testing Tools - Built-in test client, fixtures support

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💭 Philosophy

Asok is designed for developers who want to build modern web applications without managing a complex stack of dependencies. It's a cohesive toolkit where everything works together out of the box—from database to real-time features—while remaining simple enough to understand and audit.

Core Principles:

• Cohesion over Composition: All components are designed to work together seamlessly
• Simplicity over Magic: Clear, readable code with minimal abstraction layers
• Security by Default: Strong security defaults are built in, with additional production hardening available through configuration
• Developer Joy: Fast feedback loops, intuitive APIs, excellent error messages

Asok doesn't aim to replace existing frameworks—it offers a different approach for teams who value simplicity, security, and rapid development in a unified environment.

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🛠️ Installation & Setup

1. Installation

By default, Asok has zero external dependencies and works out of the box with SQLite:

pip install asok

If you wish to use optional database engines or the Redis backend (for caching and sessions), install the corresponding extra(s):

# Optional database engines & capabilities
pip install "asok[postgres]"         # Standard (requires system libpq)
pip install "asok[postgres-binary]"  # Binarized (no system dependencies, great for dev)
pip install "asok[mysql]"
pip install "asok[redis]"
pip install "asok[async]"

# Combined extras (e.g. Postgres + Redis)
pip install "asok[postgres-binary,redis]"

or clone the repo and use the asok/ folder.

2. Create a project

asok create my-project
cd my-project

3. Start the server

asok dev

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🏗️ Project Structure

├── src
│   ├── components                # Reactive components
│   ├── locales                   # JSON translations (en.json, fr.json, ...)
│   │   ├── en.json                  
│   │   └── fr.json
│   ├── middlewares               # Request interceptors
│   ├── models                    # ORM models (Post.py, User.py)
│   ├── pages                     # YOUR ROUTES (page.py, page.html)
│   │   ├── page.html
│   │   └── page.py
│   └── partials                  # css, js, images, html, uploads
│       ├── css
│       │   └── base.css
│       ├── html
│       │   └── base.html
│       ├── images
│       │   └── logo.svg
│       ├── js
│       │   └── base.js
│       └── uploads
└── wsgi.py                # Application entry point

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🛣️ Routing

Routing is dictated by the structure of the src/pages/ folder. Each folder represents a URL segment, and contains a page.py or page.html file.

• src/pages/page.html → /
• src/pages/about/page.html → /about
• src/pages/user/[id]/page.py → /user/123 (id parameter)
• src/pages/blog/[slug:slug]/page.py → /blog/my-post-slug

Dynamic Page Example (src/pages/shop/[cat]/page.py)

from asok import Request 

def render(request: Request):
    category = request.params.get('cat')
    return f"Shop : {category}"

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🎨 Templates & Inheritance

Templates in src/pages/ can inherit from layouts in src/partials/html/.

Layout (src/partials/html/base.html) :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="{{ request.lang }}">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <link rel="icon" href="{{ static('images/logo.svg') }}" type="image/svg+xml">
    <title>{% block title %}{% endblock %} &mdash; my-project</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ static('css/base.css') }}">
    <script defer src="{{ static('js/base.js') }}"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <main>{% block main %}{% endblock %}</main>
</body>
</html>

Page (src/pages/page.html) :

{% extends "html/base.html" %}
{% block title %}Welcome{% endblock %}

{% block main %}
    <div class="container">
        <img src="{{ static('images/logo.svg') }}" alt="Logo Asok">
        <h1>Welcome to Asok</h1>
        <p>No dependencies—just Python’s standard library</p>
        <p>Edit <code>src/pages/page.html</code> to get started.</p>
    </div>
{% endblock %}

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🗄️ AsokDB (The ORM)

Define your models in src/models/.

from asok import Field, Model

class User(Model):
    email = Field.String(unique=True, nullable=False)
    password = Field.Password()
    name = Field.String()
    is_admin = Field.Boolean(default=False)
    created_at = Field.CreatedAt()

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🌍 i18n & Validation

• Translation: {{ __('welcome') }} (looks in src/locales/).
• Validation: Validator(data).rule('email', 'required|email').
• CSRF: {{ request.csrf_input() }} automatic in forms.

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🎨 Admin Customization

The administration interface is highly customizable:

admin = Admin(app, site_name="My Platform", favicon="images/logo.svg")

Asset Resolution (Smart Resolution)

The admin automatically detects the source of resources:

• Internal Assets: Files like admin.css or the default logo.svg are served from the package.
• Project Assets: If you specify a path (e.g. images/logo.svg or uploads/icon.png), the admin will serve them from your resources folder (src/partials/).

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🚀 Towards Production

Asok supports both WSGI and ASGI. Use Gunicorn for WSGI or Uvicorn for ASGI:

# WSGI (Gunicorn)
gunicorn wsgi:app

# ASGI (Uvicorn) — for async/await support
uvicorn asgi:app

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🔒 Production Security Checklist

Asok is built to be secure by default, but production environments require specific configurations to enable all protections.

1. Mandatory Environment Variables

In production (DEBUG=False), Asok enforces strict security checks:

• SECRET_KEY: Must be at least 32 characters long. Use secrets.token_hex(32) to generate one.
• APP_URL: Required for Magic Links to prevent Host Header Injection. Example: https://myapp.com.

2. Secure Defaults

• DEBUG: Default is False. You must explicitly set DEBUG=True in your .env for development.
• Password Hashing: PBKDF2-SHA256 with 600,000 iterations.
• Security Headers: HSTS (1 year), CSP (with nonces), X-Frame-Options (DENY), and X-Content-Type-Options (nosniff) are enabled by default.

3. Recommended .env for Production

ASOK_ENV=production
DEBUG=false
SECRET_KEY=your-64-character-ultra-secure-key-here
APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com
DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///data/prod.db

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🤝 Contributing

We ❤️ contributions! Asok is built to be simple, transparent, and fun to hack on. Whether you're a Python beginner or expert, there's a place for you here.

🌟 Ways to Contribute

• 🐛 Report bugs - Found an issue? Open a bug report
• 💡 Suggest features - Have an idea? Start a discussion
• 📝 Improve docs - Spot a typo? Docs are in asok-docs
• 🔧 Submit PRs - Fixed something? Send a pull request
• ⭐ Star the repo - Show your support!
• 💬 Help others - Answer questions in Discussions

🚀 Quick Start for Contributors

# 1. Fork and clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/asok.git
cd asok

# 2. Create a virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # or `venv\Scripts\activate` on Windows

# 3. Install dependencies (dev mode)
pip install -e .

# 4. Run the test suite
python -m pytest

# 5. Create a branch for your feature
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature

# 6. Make your changes and test
python -m pytest -v

# 7. Commit and push
git commit -m "feat: add amazing feature"
git push origin feature/amazing-feature

📖 Read our full Contributing Guide for code style, commit conventions, and more.

🏆 Contributors

Thanks to all our amazing contributors! 🎉

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💬 Support & Resources

Need help?

• 📚 Read the documentation
• 🔍 Search existing issues
• 💬 Ask in GitHub Discussions
• 🐛 Report bugs via GitHub Issues

Documentation & Resources:

• 📖 Complete Framework Guide
• 📖 Documentation Source - Contribute to the docs
• 🛠️ Code Examples - Ready-to-use projects and templates
• 📖 CHANGELOG - See what's new in each release

Stay updated:

• ⭐ Star the repo to follow development
• 👀 Watch releases for new versions

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🗺️ Roadmap

Asok is actively developed with exciting features planned:

v0.4.0 - GraphQL & Extensions ✅ Released June 2026

• Plugin System: Fully extensible community extension system with secure path sandboxing
• Advanced SSR & Hydration: Islands architecture, Static Site Generation (SSG), and Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR)
• GraphQL API: Built-in GraphQL server with schema auto-generation from models and subscription support
• API Versioning: URL-based and header-based versioning, negotiation, deprecation warnings and sunsetting
• Advanced WebSockets: Real-time presence tracking, room authorization hooks, Direct Messages, and typing indicators
• Multi-Database Scaling: Advanced ORM database router for read replicas and query load balancing

v0.3.0 - Enterprise Ready ✅ Released June 2026

• Async/ASGI: Full async/await support with ASGI/WSGI dual engine
• Multi-DB: PostgreSQL & MySQL with connection pooling, vector search
• Advanced ORM: Polymorphic relations, self-referencing, nested eager loading, N+1 detection
• WebSocket Rooms: Multi-user collaboration with room broadcasting
• Redis: Caching, sessions, cache warming, fragment caching
• Cloud: AWS S3 storage integration
• Background Jobs: asok worker for async task processing
• Admin Enhancements: Inline editing, advanced filtering, saved presets, column customization
• VSCode Extension: Syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, snippets, route navigation
• Localization: Translation management UI and automatic string extraction
• Query Optimization: N+1 detection, query analysis, index suggestions, slow query logging

v0.5.0 - Enterprise Scale & Observability (Planned Q1 2027)

• Built-in Monitoring: Prometheus/Grafana integration, performance metrics and health check endpoints
• Multi-Tenancy: SaaS tenant isolation structures and middleware
• CDN Integration: Automatic static media asset pipeline delivery
• Microservices Support: Built-in gRPC support and service mesh integration

Note: Timelines are subject to change based on community feedback and development priorities.

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🏭 Production Status

Asok v0.4.0 is actively developed software with growing production adoption. It's suitable for:

✅ Recommended for:

• Production web applications and APIs
• Internal tools and admin dashboards
• Personal projects and MVPs
• Rapid prototyping and experimentation
• Learning full-stack Python development
• Projects requiring zero runtime dependencies
• Applications where dependency auditing is critical

⚠️ Current Limitations:

• Ecosystem: Growing community, limited third-party plugins
• Maturity: v0.4.x - APIs are stabilizing but may evolve before v1.0

For mission-critical production applications, Asok v0.4.0 provides enterprise features (async, multi-DB, Redis, S3) suitable for production workloads. Evaluate if the current feature set meets your specific requirements.

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.