Every business ends up with the same small headache: one system needs to tell another system something, and the two don’t speak the same language. A new order arrives and the accounting tool needs to know. A form gets submitted and the right person needs a ticket. We’re building a tool to make that easy, and we’re calling it Simple Middleware.
It isn’t finished. We’d rather tell you that up front than pretend otherwise. This post is about what it’s going to be, and what we’re still working out.
The idea
“Middleware” is just the piece in the middle. Something happens in one app, and Simple Middleware catches it, reshapes it if needed, and passes it along to wherever it should go. No servers to run and no integration project to commission.
How it will work
- Get a web address. Create a project, add an endpoint, and you get a unique URL. Point any app that can send a webhook at it. (A webhook is just one app automatically notifying another when something happens.)
- Decide what happens next. Do nothing, forward the message untouched to another service, or run a short piece of JavaScript to clean it up first. You can also combine them: tidy the data with a script, then forward the result.
- Watch it work. A dashboard shows every message that came in, what your script did with it, and where it went. When something goes wrong, you can see exactly why.
What we’re building it to be
Simple for the simple cases. Passing a message along shouldn’t require writing code. Reshaping or filtering one should take a few lines, not a few weeks.
Safe by design. Your scripts run in a locked-down sandbox with strict time and memory limits. Outbound calls are checked so a script can’t be pointed at places it shouldn’t reach. Each account is kept separate from every other.
Able to handle a busy day. Traffic spikes are expected. Work is queued with sensible limits so one noisy sender can’t crowd out everyone else.
Clear when things break. A built-in test button, a script editor with saved versions you can roll back, and a full history of runs.
In your control. Soon you’ll be able to decide what a sender gets back, such as a custom reply, and whether a failed script should tell the sender to try again.
Who it’s for
Small teams, freelancers, and developers who keep gluing apps together with one-off scripts and hope. If you’ve ever thought “I just need this thing to talk to that thing,” this is for you.
Where we are, honestly
The foundations are in place and we’re working through the rest in the open. Still ahead: automatic retries for failed deliveries, production hosting and hardening, plans and billing, and full documentation. Some details above may change as we learn from real use. We won’t put a launch date on it until we trust it.
If you’d like to know when it’s ready, or have a real integration headache you’d want it to solve, get in touch. Your use case may well shape what we build next.
Wondering whether you need custom software at all? Read Do You Actually Need a Website or a Web App?