01
Small by design
Every line of code must justify its existence — for what it says and for what it costs to run. Size is never the goal: it is the evidence left behind when nothing unjustified survives.
Overview
The MicroDOM Ecosystem
One standard, two layers: micro behavior, micro semantics. The core is the grammar; the modules are vocabulary you install by importing. Everything is dependency-free, useful on its own, and speaks the same two-method protocol.
Stable
In development
Experimental
Foundations
Core principles
02
Readable by default
HTML, CSS and JavaScript should be understandable directly — no transpilers, no generated artifacts between you and the page. What you write is what the browser runs, and what a colleague reads six months later.
03
µ(*)
[µ*]
⌥
⌸
No build step required
Projects should work with plain files, CDN imports and simple hosting. The distance between editing a file and seeing it live is a browser refresh — for you today, and for whoever inherits the project.
04
Progressive ecosystem
Developers should only include the pieces they actually need. Every module stands alone and installs by importing; nothing arrives that you didn't ask for, and nothing breaks when you leave a piece out.
05
Platform native
The browser already provides the primitives; microDOM embraces web standards instead of abstracting them away.
06
Fit anywhere
Web apps, widgets, docs, embedded interfaces, blockchain interfaces and constrained environments.
Stable
Shipping today
One npm package, five entry points. The whole family — grammar, state, lists, live data and motion — weighs 17.6 KB minified. Adopt it one import at a time.
Mode JS
The reactive DOM engine of the Microdom standard. One function reads, writes and
binds the DOM; any object with get/sub keeps it live.
7.4 KB, zero dependencies, no build step.
Mode CSS
The design baseline for the content web. Classless, cascade-first: semantic HTML
styled out of the box, an exact set of µ-* attributes for layout, and
classes reserved for state. 11.6 KB minified, 3.1 KB gzip.
Mode JS Family
One package, one language. The core is the grammar — select, read, write,
traverse, bind — and every module adds vocabulary through the same
µ(...) call: state, keyed lists, live data, motion. Each piece is
independent, installs by importing, and speaks the atom protocol; together they
weigh 17.6 KB.
Where did Mode Bind go? It graduated. Reactive data binding is no
longer a separate library on a roadmap — it shipped inside the 2.0 core as the atom
protocol: pass any object with get/sub to any µ command and
the DOM stays in sync. The promise became grammar.
@microdom/mode | The grammar — select, read, write, traverse, bind | 7.4 KB |
@microdom/mode/atom | Mode Atom — atom, computed, effect | 1.1 KB |
@microdom/mode/list | Mode List — keyed rendering with lifecycle | 1.4 KB |
@microdom/mode/data | Mode Data — columnar store for live feeds | 2.4 KB |
@microdom/mode/move | Mode Move — animation through the same call | 5.3 KB |
In development
On the workbench
Mode Router
An SPA router. Map URLs to views with the smallest possible surface area — no opinions you didn't ask for.
In developmentMode Base
Persistence for the data that stays: a compact JSON store over
localStorage whose keys speak the atom protocol — carts, sessions and
preferences that survive reload and sync across tabs.
Research
Research
The third rung of the ladder. Ideas enter as research, harden on the workbench, and ship as standard — data binding walked this path, from a card on a roadmap to the grammar of the 2.0 core.
The bar here is the same one the code answers to: we publish measurements, not intentions. A research line is listed when it carries a question, a constraint and a finding — the way the live-table threshold (500 instruments, ~1 ms per tick) was measured before it shipped as Mode Data. Lines currently in the lab appear here when their numbers are ready.