Hello fellow racletteers!

Sometimes a release is about adding features.

Sometimes it's about making sure those features are actually ready for production.

This one is both.

Today we're happy to announce our first minor version upgrade: from 0.1.x to 0.2.x. And don't worry, you did not miss anything – there was no 0.2.0 or 0.2.1, because we failed a bit with the pre-releases and npm versions. So let's just begin the next journey with 0.2.2, yey!
This release represents one of the biggest milestones for the framework so far.

The headline feature is a completely new authentication system with built-in OAuth support, but that's only part of the story. A large portion of this release happened beneath the surface, strengthening security, improving session handling and making application development even more convenient.

And as always, things have been moving across the ecosystem as well – from RacStack improvements to discussions about open billing standards within Sovereign Cloud Stack.

Let's see what melted into the stack. 🧀

🚀 racletteJS 0.2.2 goes brr.

After many months of development we're officially leaving the beta stage.

The framework has reached a point where we're confident enough in its architecture to call it production-ready for real-world projects. (Ok, no 1.x yet ;))

That doesn't mean development slows down.

Quite the opposite.

Many of the larger architectural building blocks are now in place, allowing future releases to focus even more on developer experience, plugins and applications. But still, we have a lot more plans and work to do.

@raclettejs/core

🔐 oAuth finally arrives

One of the most requested features has finally landed.

racletteJS now provides a complete authentication middleware with integrated OAuth support based on Arctic.

Plugins can expose their own authentication providers while applications get a consistent authentication flow out of the box.

This is also the foundation for upcoming integrations such as:

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

Authentication should become infrastructure – not something every application has to reinvent.

🛡️ Security received a major overhaul

While OAuth is the visible feature, a significant amount of work went into making the authentication layer secure by default.

Among the improvements:

• verified email checks before automatically linking OAuth accounts
• protection against open redirect attacks
• improved login rate limiting
• atomic session handling
• more reliable token management
• automatic session cleanup
• improved OAuth profile mapping
• safer socket authentication

Most of these changes aren't features you'll ever notice.

That's exactly the point.

📊 BaseDataTable grows up

The framework's data table component received one of its biggest upgrades yet.

New capabilities include:

• typed column filters
• date and numeric comparison operators
• enum filtering
• draft/apply filter workflows
• virtual scrolling for large datasets
• lazy-loaded filter options
• performance optimizations
• improved grouping behaviour

If you're building administration interfaces, you'll likely notice the difference immediately.

🔒 Better secret management

Applications can now encrypt sensitive configuration values using AES-256-GCM.

OAuth client secrets are stored encrypted at rest, and plugin developers can use the same encryption helpers for their own sensitive configuration.

Combined with password-protected Valkey support, deploying racletteJS applications now requires significantly less custom security plumbing.

@raclettejs/workbench

Workbench naturally benefits from the new authentication infrastructure as well.

OAuth providers can now be configured directly through dedicated configuration widgets, making authentication setup much more approachable.

Plugin authors also gain another quality-of-life improvement:

Apps can now ship default configurations that can be imported during project creation or later from the project settings.

A small addition that should make onboarding new projects considerably easier. No need to manually fumble with UI and widgets anymore.

🌍 Ecosystem Updates

☁️ RacStack keeps evolving

Development on RacStack, our OpenStack billing and reporting application, continues at full speed.

Following the recent 0.2.0 release, development has already focused on bringing the new framework capabilities into production.

Recent improvements include:

• encrypted OpenStack application credentials
• password-protected Valkey deployments
• automatic migration of existing secrets
• removal of legacy JWT configuration
• updated deployment documentation

As racletteJS evolves, its applications benefit almost immediately from improvements in security and infrastructure and vice versa.

Exactly the kind of feedback loop we hoped to build.

🎤 See RacStack in action tomorrow

If you'd like to see RacStack operating in a real-world environment, tomorrow's ALASCA Tech Talk is a great opportunity.

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

Friedrich Zahn and Daniel Gerber will showcase how ALASCA operates its infrastructure using open technologies – including RacStack for monitoring cloud resource usage.

The talk covers:

• OpenTofu-based infrastructure management
• Sovereign Cloud Stack Domain Manager
• RacStack resource monitoring and billing
• autoscaling CI runners
• lessons learned operating production cloud infrastructure

Whether you're interested in OpenStack, sovereign cloud infrastructure or simply enjoy hearing about production stories (including accidentally DoSing your own cloud), it's well worth joining.

📅 Friday, July 31st

Talk information:
https://alasca.cloud/alasca-tech-talks/

Join directly at 11AM CEST:
https://bbb.cloudandheat.com/rooms/a6x-ubv-eje-uuv/join

☁️ Billing standardization gains momentum

One topic we're particularly excited about isn't a software release.

The Sovereign Cloud Stack community has started discussing billing standardisation.

Open, interoperable billing interfaces are an important building block for cloud portability and transparency, and we're looking forward to seeing where these discussions lead.

If you're operating cloud infrastructure, providing cloud services or simply interested in the future of open cloud billing, now is a great time to join the conversation.

https://github.com/orgs/SovereignCloudStack/discussions/738

👀 What's next?

Now that authentication has landed, a lot of possibilities open up.

Upcoming work already includes:

• additional identity providers
• deeper Keycloak integration
• SuperTokens support
• more enterprise authentication options
• continued plugin ecosystem growth
• more applications built on racletteJS

And, of course, plenty of polishing along the way.

One of the nicest things about this release is that many of its biggest improvements won't immediately stand out.

Applications simply become a little safer.

Configuration becomes a little easier.

Development becomes a little smoother.

Those small improvements accumulate over time – and that's exactly what we want racletteJS to be: a framework that quietly removes friction so developers can focus on building great applications.

As always, we'd love your feedback.

Open issues.

Suggest features.

Challenge architectural decisions.

Or even better – build something with racletteJS and tell us what worked, what didn't and what you'd like to see next.

See you in the next release.

 

The Cheesy People 🧀