How Functions works

Code that runs next to the user answers a request near where it starts, instead of at a distant server the request must travel to. That code does not start by itself. Something in the request path has to decide, on every request, that this is the moment to call it.

On Azion, three separate objects carry that decision. A function holds the JavaScript code. A function instance binds that function to an application or to a firewall. The instance carries the Args, a JSON object passed into the context of the function’s execution. A Rules Engine rule names the instance, the phase it runs in, and the criteria that trigger it.

Creating a function does not run it. A function that no rule points at never executes, however correct its code.

The APIs the code calls are documented in the Azion Runtime tree rather than here, and the value of every boundary named below lives on Limits. The mechanisms are the three objects, the invocation chain, execution phases and their criteria, the two execution contexts, Args, and what Azion Runtime provides.

The function, the instance, and the rule

Functions keeps three objects apart, and each one owns a different decision.

The function is the code. You write it in JavaScript, and it belongs to Functions rather than to any single application. The same function can serve several applications, which is why the code lives apart from the places that run it.

A function instance binds one function to one application or to one firewall. Instantiation does not open the code for editing. The only thing an instance sets is the Args, the arguments passed to the context of the function’s execution in JSON format. One function can therefore have many instances, each configured differently.

A Rules Engine rule is the trigger. Its Run Function behavior selects an instance, and the rule carries the execution phase and the criteria that decide when the behavior fires. Nothing else invokes a function.

The split buys reuse: one piece of code, many bindings, many configurations. It costs a third object to keep track of. An instance that no rule points at is inert, and so is a correct function with no instance.

Changing the code changes it for every instance that binds it, because an instance names the function rather than holding a copy of it. To update the code of a function that is already live, refer to Azion CLI update.

The invocation chain

The diagram below has two inputs that meet at the rule. The chain along the top is configuration you create once, in that order. The arrow from the left is a live request.

When a request reaches Azion, Rules Engine evaluates the rules of the current phase in the order they are arranged. A rule whose criteria do not match contributes nothing, and the request continues as though the rule were absent. A rule whose criteria match runs its behaviors in order. When one of those behaviors is Run Function, it resolves the instance it names. Azion Runtime then executes the handler with the request and the instance’s Args. Control returns to Rules Engine, which continues with the behaviors that follow.

Azion Traffic Router selects the node that receives the request, before any of this chain runs. For the dataflow the chain sits inside, refer to Build REST and GraphQL APIs.

The decision is made per request, so the criteria are the only control over how often the code runs. Criteria that match broadly invoke the function on every matching request.

Execution phases and criteria

Every request to an application is processed in a fixed sequence of two phases. The Request Phase handles what the user sent. The Response Phase handles what the application sends back. A rule belongs to one phase, and that choice decides what its criteria can read: a request-phase rule cannot use variables that describe the response, because the application has not produced the response yet.

Within the phase, the criteria decide whether the rule fires. A criterion pairs a variable with a comparison operator, plus an argument when the operator takes one: is equal, is not equal, starts with, does not start with, matches, does not match, exists, and does not exist. The logical operators and and or combine several criteria into one condition, and and has implicit precedence over or. A rule whose criterion compares ${uri} with starts with against the argument /api/ runs its function only on requests under that path.

Order matters twice over. Behaviors run in the order they are arranged, and a behavior that finishes processing stops everything after it. Deny (403 Forbidden), Deliver, and Finish Request Phase all end the sequence, so a Run Function behavior placed after one of them never executes.

The Run Function behavior also requires the Application Accelerator module. When that module is off, only some variables and behaviors are available to a rule.

Evaluating criteria in Rules Engine keeps the invocation out of requests that do not need it. The price is that the trigger lives in the rule and not in the code: reading a function tells you what it does and never when it runs.

The two execution contexts

A function runs in one of two contexts, and the context decides which handler the code exports and what the function is allowed to do. An instance on an application runs the function inside the traffic path of that application. An instance on a firewall runs it before the request reaches the application.

Functions in an application

The trigger for an instance on an application is a Rules Engine rule of that application. The Run Function behavior is available in both the Request Phase and the Response Phase. The code exports a fetch handler:

The handler receives request, the HTTP request object; env, the environment variables and bindings; and ctx, the execution context. ctx.waitUntil(promise) extends the lifetime of the execution beyond the point where the handler returns.

Functions on a firewall

The trigger for an instance on a firewall is a Rules Engine rule of that firewall. A function on a firewall runs during the request phase, before the application produces a response. The code exports a firewall handler:

The parameters match the fetch handler, with one addition. ctx.deny() blocks the request immediately, and it exists in the ES Modules pattern only. When the code does not call it, the request continues to the fetch handler.

The Service Worker pattern carries the same decisions as events on a firewall listener. Every function on a firewall must reach a finishing outcome. event.continue() lets the request proceed, event.deny() ends it with a 403 Forbidden, and event.drop() closes the request without returning an answer to the client. event.respondWith() returns a custom response instead, while event.addRequestHeader() and event.addResponseHeader() add headers to the request sent to the origin and to the response sent to users. For more information, refer to Functions for Firewall.

Azion Runtime processes the function and returns an outcome, and Rules Engine on the firewall resumes processing from the point where the behavior was triggered. A function on a firewall also reads metadata about the request it is deciding on:

• The geographic location derived from the client IP address.
• The client IP address and TCP port.
• The request protocol, such as HTTP/1.1.
• The TLS cipher and the TLS protocol, when the request arrives over a secure connection.

The two contexts trade in opposite directions. A function on a firewall decides whether the request reaches the application at all, which no function in an application can do. A function in an application is the only one that runs in the Response Phase.

Args

Args are the arguments an instance passes into the context of the function’s execution, written as a JSON object. They exist so that one function behaves differently in each place it is instantiated, with no edit to the code. The code reads a key at run time; the instance decides the value.

A function can define default Args of its own, and those defaults are the basis for every instance of that function. An instance’s Args override the keys they repeat, and every key the instance leaves out keeps its default. A function whose defaults set threshold, action, and log_level, instantiated with Args that set only the first two, executes with these values:

In the Service Worker pattern, the code reads Args from the event.args object, one property per key:

With {"value": "hello_world"} in the Args of one instance, that instance answers with hello_world. A second instance of the same function answers with whatever its own Args carry.

The Args object has a size cap, and an object above it makes the function fail at instantiation rather than at run time. Configuration held in Args also costs you the ability to read behavior off the code: two instances of one function can act differently, and only their Args say how. Args are per-instance configuration, so sensitive values such as API keys, credentials, and access tokens belong in environment variables, which keep them out of the codebase.

What Azion Runtime provides

Azion Runtime is the environment the handler executes in. It runs JavaScript built on Web standards, so the code calls Web APIs rather than a proprietary interface: network, encoding and decoding, Web Streams, standards, and V8 primitives. Strict mode is the default and is required, which turns several silent JavaScript errors into thrown errors and blocks syntax that later ECMAScript versions may define.

Each execution context is a V8 isolate, and the memory boundary applies to that isolate. Two more boundaries shape how code is written against the runtime: a function that exceeds the CPU budget is terminated, and the number of outbound fetch() calls in a single invocation is capped. Limits carries all three values.

The runtime also reaches Azion’s own stores from inside the handler. Azion.KV reads and writes pairs through the KV Store API, and Database.open() opens a connection through the SQL Database API. The Storage class reads and writes objects in a bucket through the Object Storage API. These interfaces reach the stores from inside the runtime rather than through an external API call.

Building on Web standards rather than on Node.js is the trade this design makes. A subset of Node.js APIs is supported, and the Node.js compatibility reference lists that subset together with the polyfills that cover part of the remainder. The File System module is one of the natively supported ones, and its method table is in File System (FS) module support. The handler signatures, the full Web API list, and the metadata catalog live in the Azion Runtime tree.

Framework builds through Azion Bundler

A framework project does not reach Azion as the files you wrote. Azion Bundler, an open-source framework adapter, transforms that code into functions, and those generated functions are what the chain above invokes.

The build runs in four stages:

1. Framework detection. When you initialize a project with Azion CLI, the bundler identifies the framework and applies its adapter.
2. Code transformation. The bundler converts the framework’s server-side logic, API routes, and middleware into functions compatible with Azion Runtime.
3. Function generation. Each route, API endpoint, and server component becomes a function that executes independently.
4. Deployment. The functions are distributed across Azion’s infrastructure and execute closer to users, with no cold start.

The build also writes azion.config.js, an infrastructure-as-code file created from the chosen preset that becomes the source of truth for the configuration. It declares the function instances and the rules that bind them, so a framework deploy creates the objects you would otherwise create by hand. For its fields, refer to azion.config.js.

The deployed artifact is therefore a set of generated functions rather than your source tree, and that has two consequences. A framework deployment is billed as functions are, by compute time and invocations, per Pricing. And the code you observe when something fails is the generated function, not the file you edited, so the tools in Troubleshooting are what show you the behavior.

For the frameworks the bundler supports, refer to Frameworks compatibility.

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