Via

Reactive web apps in pure Go. A composition is a struct, reactive state is a typed field, actions are methods — and the compiler understands your UI. Via is the only framework, in any language, that expresses the client/server reactive split as a Go type: Signal[T] lives in the browser, StateTab/Sess/App[T] live only on the server. Which side owns a piece of state is a field declaration the compiler checks, not a convention you grep for. Transport is SSE only — no WebSockets, no build step, no hand-written JS.

📖 Documentation · API reference · Examples

Install

go get github.com/go-via/via

Quickstart: the counter

Two counters, two scopes. Local is per-tab server state; Shared is one value across every session — clicking +1 bumps Local only in that tab, but Shared everywhere at once. No Broadcast, no WebSocket, no client JS. on.Click(p.IncShared) is a typed method reference: the handler signature is compile-checked and a misspelled method name won't build. It must be a real bound method, though — a closure or plain function satisfies the type but has no name to route to, so it panics at the first render rather than at compile time.

package main

import (
    "net/http"

    "github.com/go-via/via"
    "github.com/go-via/via/h"
    "github.com/go-via/via/on"
)

type Page struct {
    Local  via.StateTabNum[int] // per-tab — independent in every tab
    Shared via.StateAppNum[int] // global — synced across every session
}

func (p *Page) IncLocal(ctx *via.Ctx)  { p.Local.Op(ctx).Inc() }
func (p *Page) IncShared(ctx *via.Ctx) { p.Shared.Op(ctx).Inc() }

func (p *Page) View(ctx *via.CtxR) h.H {
    return h.Div(
        h.P(h.Text("Local: "), p.Local.Text(ctx)),
        h.Button(h.Text("+1"), on.Click(p.IncLocal)),
        h.P(h.Text("Shared: "), p.Shared.Text(ctx)),
        h.Button(h.Text("+1"), on.Click(p.IncShared)),
    )
}

func main() {
    app := via.New()
    via.Mount[Page](app, "/")
    _ = http.ListenAndServe(":3000", app)
}

go run ./internal/examples/counterscope   # open in two browsers

For state shared across users, see the live chatroom — one app-scoped field that fans every message out to every connected tab: internal/examples/chat · tutorial.

The four reactive shapes

Whether state lives on the client, the server, or both is the field's type:

Handle	Scope	Lives on
via.Signal[T]	per-tab	client + server
via.StateTab[T]	per-tab	server only
via.StateSess[T]	per-session	server only
via.StateApp[T]	global	server only

Read(ctx) / Update(ctx, fn) everywhere; Signal and StateTab add Write(ctx, v). The Num / Bool / Str / Slice / Map wrappers add typed Op(ctx) verbs (Add, Toggle, Append, …). Full model →

What Via is — and is not

• Is: server-rendered pages with typed end-to-end state, a reactive browser runtime (Datastar — it keeps the page reactive and updates it in place), and no build step — best for internal tools, dashboards, and line-of-business apps you'd otherwise build with LiveView, Hotwire, or htmx + hand-written JS.
• Is not an SPA framework — the browser receives HTML, not a JSON bundle.
• Single-process by default — without a backplane StateApp[T] and Broadcast are per-pod and horizontal scaling needs sticky sessions. WithBackplane (in preview) converges StateApp state across pods and fans Broadcast out to every pod's tabs; both inherit the backplane's pre-1.0 status.
• Is not offline-first or stable yet — drop the SSE stream and the tab freezes until the client reconnects (transient drops retry automatically; a clean-close deploy may fall back to a reload), and APIs can still shift pre-1.0.

Documentation

The full guide and reference live at go-via.github.io/via.

• Why Via — the thesis, and Via vs. LiveView / Hotwire / htmx / templ.
• Getting started · Tutorial — install, your first composition, then build the live chatroom.
• Reactive state — Signal vs StateTab/Sess/App, typed ops, view helpers.
• Actions & lifecycle — events, hooks, streaming, broadcast.
• Rendering · h helpers — the HTML DSL.
• Routing & sessions — routing, groups, sessions, auth, the middleware stack.
• File uploads — via.File.
• Plugins — picocss, echarts, maplibre.
• Testing · Production & ops — vt; config, metrics, security, deploys.
• Examples · Troubleshooting · Glossary.

License

MIT