Hello fellow racletteers!

Sometimes you spend months polishing framework internals.

Sometimes you suddenly realize that an idea from a hackathon has turned into something people can actually use.

This newsletter is a bit of both.

Over the last weeks we've continued improving racletteJS itself with better caching, smoother page loading, improved developer tooling and a lot of frontend refinements.

But the biggest news is happening outside the framework:

The racletteJS ecosystem now has its first publicly documented application deployment.

What started as a proof of concept during the ALASCA Hackathon 2025 in Stuttgart has grown into an actual tool addressing a real need in the European OpenStack ecosystem.

Let's see what melted into the stack 🧀

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🚀 New Releases: racletteJS 0.1.37 → 0.1.42

This release cycle focused on making applications feel smoother, improving operational flexibility and removing lots of small developer annoyances.

Highlights include:

• configurable Valkey databases per application role
• significantly improved page loading coordination
• better widget lifecycle handling
• new Workbench cache explorer
• numerous frontend stability fixes
• build tooling improvements
• continued polishing across the platform

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@raclettejs/core

⚡ Smarter Application Loading

One of the larger architectural improvements happened behind the scenes.

Applications now coordinate page loading much more intelligently.

Instead of relying on router timeouts, racletteJS now waits until:

• socket bootstrap finished
• widget slots are actually ready
• modal compositions completed loading
• asynchronous widget placeholders no longer block rendering

The result is a smoother experience with fewer loading glitches and more predictable application startup.

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🗄️ Better Cache Configuration

Caching became considerably more flexible.

Applications can now configure dedicated Valkey databases for:

• app
• workbench
• core

while still supporting a shared fallback configuration when desired.

To make local development and Docker deployments easier, new cache URL helpers were added together with automatic configuration loading from the application's raclette.config.js.

This keeps multi-application setups much cleaner than before.

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🧩 Frontend Improvements

Several frontend improvements landed during this release cycle.

Highlights include:

• improved grouped table selection
• better widget lifecycle tracking
• improved loading overlays for modal compositions
• optimized store reducer performance
• improved microtask scheduling
• more reliable error rendering
• exporters now support raw document exports
• JSON import/export fixes
• route guard fixes

None of these changes are particularly flashy on their own.

Together they make everyday application development noticeably smoother.

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🛠️ Build System Progress

We also continued cleaning up the build system.

Recent releases fixed several issues around generated shared resources and build output, but the bigger work is still ongoing.

Many Linux users working with raclette apps which link the core packages probably know the infamous situation where parts of the .raclette directory suddenly belonged to root because Docker decided today was a good day to ruin your permissions.

Yep, that one.

We're finally approaching a proper solution.

The build pipeline is receiving a much-needed overhaul and we're looking forward to shipping a cleaner developer experience with the upcoming 0.2.0 release.

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@raclettejs/workbench

Workbench received another round of quality-of-life improvements.

🔍 Built-in Cache Explorer

One of our favorite additions is the brand-new cache explorer.

You can now inspect your Valkey data directly from the Workbench, making debugging and development much easier.

If you've ever wondered what your cache actually contains without opening another terminal, this one's for you.

And let's just say:

Wait until you see what's coming in v0.2.0. 👀 Some glitter might hit the fan

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✨ Additional Improvements

Workbench also gained:

• localized cache management
• configurable cache database inheritance
• improved interaction link ordering
• deletion confirmation dialogs
• improved import/export handling
• various frontend refinements and bug fixes

Small improvements that add up over time.

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🌍 Ecosystem Updates

☁️ RacStack 0.2.0 Beta

Our OpenStack Billing Dashboard has grown significantly.

Actually...

It has grown enough that it deserved its own identity.

Welcome RacStack Or whatever we will call your from now on.

Version 0.2.0 is currently available as a beta - 0.2.0.beta - and represents by far the biggest release of the project so far.

Highlights include:

• pricing for volumes and floating IPs
• per-project pricing overrides
• pricing export/import -> thank you momdy core v0.1.42 - yes, momdy is a daddy mommy mashup -
• redesigned billing widgets and charts
• improved access control
• OpenStack API debugging -> check the README.md
• improved billing synchronization
• major Workbench UI improvements
• numerous migration and stability improvements

This is currently the largest application built with racletteJS, and it continues to validate many of the architectural decisions we've made inside the framework itself.
For more news on the Beta phase checkout our Matrix Channel

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🎉 A Major Milestone for the racletteJS Ecosystem

One of the biggest milestones for the racletteJS ecosystem came from the recently published KInIT case study.

The first publicly documented deployment of an application incorporating a racletteJS application is here.

As part of the project, dNation selected RacStack to provide reporting capabilities for the OpenStack infrastructure behind KInIT's Sovereign AI Cloud. The case study explains that OpenStack's built-in reporting capabilities did not meet their requirements, leading them to integrate RacStack into the deployment.

First and foremost, we'd like to thank dNation for placing their trust in an early-stage open source project and giving RacStack the opportunity to become part of such an exciting OpenStack deployment.

You can read the full case study here:

https://superuser.openinfra.org/articles/the-kinit-case-study-sovereign-ai-cloud/

Looking back makes this even more special.

Only one year ago, during the ALASCA Hackathon 2025 in Stuttgart, RacStack started as a small proof of concept.

Today it has become a real application addressing a practical need in European OpenStack environments: providing transparent reporting and billing on top of OpenStack using open technologies from cheesy people.

We're still only at the beginning of that journey.

Today, RacStack focuses on uptime-based billing for OpenStack resources. More advanced billing models will come in the future, but our first priority was building a reliable, transparent and open platform that operators can actually use, understand and maintain.

Our long-term vision is to provide a modern, open source, SCS-compatible user interface for OpenStack operations and billing—developed openly, together with the community.

If you're operating OpenStack infrastructure, building sovereign cloud platforms, or simply interested in making the ecosystem better, we'd love your feedback.

Please:

• open feature requests
• report bugs
• tell us what annoys you
• tell us what we're missing
• or even better: contribute!

Whether it's code, ideas or constructive criticism, every contribution helps make the project better for everyone.

Our goal remains simple:

Build awesome open source software from Europe, for the world. 🌍🧀

Because digital sovereignty is not created by writing another thousand-page document in Brussels and hoping innovation follows. It is created by people building, sharing and improving real technology together.

The future of European infrastructure should not only be regulated... it should be free and should be built. Looking at you Ursel

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🎤 RacStack at ALASCA Tech-Talk #37

If you'd like to see RacStack in action, you can catch it as part of the next ALASCA Tech-Talk.

Our project will be showcased alongside the infrastructure powering the ALASCA community in the talk:

Going Full Arctic Circle: Running ALASCA on Open Cloud Infrastructure & Standards

The session will be presented by Friedrich Zahn and Daniel Gerber (ALASCA FOCIS) and will cover how the ALASCA community operates its infrastructure on open cloud technologies and open standards.

Among other topics, they'll demonstrate:

• how ALASCA manages its infrastructure using OpenTofu
• the SCS Domain Manager role
• RacStack for monitoring resource usage and uptime-based billing
• autoscaling GitLab and Woodpecker CI runners
• lessons learned while operating production infrastructure

If you're interested in Sovereign Cloud, OpenStack or simply curious how these technologies fit together, it's definitely worth joining.

📅 Friday, July 31st, 11:00–12:00 CEST

https://bbb.cloudandheat.com/rooms/a6x-ubv-eje-uuv/join

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👀 Looking Ahead: racletteJS 0.2.0

Development is already in full swing for the next major... minor? framework release.

One of the biggest additions will be a completely new authentication middleware.

The goal is to make integrating authentication providers almost effortless.

Planned integrations include:

• OAuth
• OpenID Connect
• Keycloak
• SuperTokens
• additional enterprise identity providers

The core implementation builds upon Arctic.js and Oslo.js, while providing batteries-included integration for racletteJS applications.

We'll also publish a complete SuperTokens example once everything lands. Or maybe a bit later...

Stay tuned.

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🧀 And Beyond...

Development also continues on:

• cheesy-crm
• cheesy-mind-management
• additional plugins
• lots of platform improvements

As you may have noticed...

Writing this newsletter almost took as long as building some of these releases.

So if you'd like to help us move even faster, we'd love to have you around.

Whether it's feature requests, bug reports, documentation, discussions or code contributions — every contribution helps, except AI slop...

Until the next melt.

The Cheesy People 🧀