ClaferIDE

v0.5.3

A web-based IDE for Clafer.

ClaferIDE is part of Clafer Tools. Read more in the paper Clafer Tools for Product Line Engineering.

Live demo

• Master branch (stable and released): ClaferIDE
• Develop branch (with latest features, but may be unstable): ClaferIDE (development)

If the demo is down or you encounter a bug, please email Michał Antkiewicz.

Background

See clafer.org.

Functions

• Provides a web-based IDE for modeling in Clafer.
• Provides an source code editor (ACE).
• Compiles the model to HTML for syntax highlighting and navigation via hyperlinks or error highlighting.
• Instantiates the model using ClaferIG and allows for global scope setting and requesting a next instance.
• Provides a set of predefined examples that can be compiled and instantiated.
• Temporal (behavioral) Clafer models can be edited and compiled; instance generation supports only static models.

Nature

ClaferIDE is a web-based application. Its server side (implemented with Node.js) processes requests, runs the chosen back-end and passes back its output. The client-side is implemented using JavaScript/HTML and handles all the IDE functionality.

Contributors

• Alexandr Murashkin. Original developer.
• Michał Antkiewicz. Research Engineer. Requirements, development, architecture, testing, technology transfer.
• Eldar Khalilov. Developer. Upgrade to 0.4.2 (replace XML with JSON, test suites).

Installation and running

Dependencies for running

• Java Platform (JDK) v17+
• Clafer v0.5.3
  • can be from the binary distribution
• Node.js, tested with v26
• Backends' dependencies must be satisfied. See the backend installation steps below.

Installation

Core

1. Download (git clone) ClaferIDE to some directory <target directory>
2. Go to <target directory>/ClaferIDE and execute

git submodule init
git submodule update

This will install the platform.

When working with a branch other then master, you need to additionally checkout that branch (e.g., develop):

git submodule foreach git checkout develop

3. Go to <target directory>/ClaferIDE/Server and execute

npm install

This will download all the required Node.js modules.

4. Install the backends clafer, claferIG, chocosolver into some location <bin> found on PATH. The backends in Server/Backends/backends.json run them from PATH.

The fastest way is to unzip a binary distribution into the folder <bin>.

See Installing Backends for detailed steps.

Settings

1. Make sure the port 8094 is free, or change the value of the key port in Server/config.json: "port" = "8094" to any free one.

Optional limits and settings in Server/config.json:

• allowedModelURLs: prefixes of the URLs from which models can be opened with ?claferFileURL=..., for example the ClaferWiki URL http://<wiki host>:<wiki port>/clafer/; opening models from URLs is disabled when the list is empty
• maxSessions (default 50): the maximum number of concurrent sessions
• maxUploadSize (default 16 MB): the maximum size of a submitted model or instance data
• uploadsPerMinute (30), commandsPerMinute (300), pollsPerMinute (600): rate limits per client IP address
• trustProxy: Express's trust proxy setting when running behind a reverse proxy (e.g., "loopback" or 1), so that the rate limits apply per client

The environment variables ALLOWED_MODEL_URLS (URL prefixes separated by spaces) and TRUST_PROXY override allowedModelURLs and trustProxy, e.g., when running in a container.

2. Make sure clafer, claferIG, chocosolver, node, and java are in PATH environment variables, so they can be executed without any path prefixes.

3. Running the following commands should produce the following results or later version:

clafer --version

Clafer 0.5.3

claferIG --version

ClaferIG 0.5.3

chocosolver --version

chocosolver v0.5.3.2026-10-15

java -version

openjdk version "17"

node -v

v26.11.1

4. Make sure uploads folder is accessible for writing, since temporary files will be stored there.

5. If you use Shell scipts (.sh) for running, make sure the scripts have Execute permissions.

Running

• To run the server in a standard mode, execute

cd <target directory>/ClaferIDE/Server/
node ClaferIDE.js

• If you use Node Supervisor under Linux, you can execute

cd <target directory>/ClaferIDE/Server/commons
chmod +x start.sh
./start.sh

Then you can go to any browser and type http://localhost:[port]/ and open any Clafer file with objectives in it.

Trying an Example

• Choose Simple model of a Person example in the dropdown box in the upper-left corner of the tool window.
• Press Compile button right in the front of the drop down list.
• Once you see the compilation is complete, go to Instance Generator view and press Run there (the default backend is Alloy-based IG (IG only)).
• The Output view should print the first generated instance.

Important: Branches must correspond

All related projects are following the simultaneous release model. The branch master contains releases, whereas the branch develop contains code under development. When building the tools, the branches should match. Releases from branches master are guaranteed to work well together. Development versions from branches develop should work well together but this might not always be the case.

Need help?

• Visit language's website.
• Report issues to issue tracker