Gantry: Slack’s Unified Boot Framework for Faster Product Development

Slack, the popular workplace communication platform, has developed an innovative boot framework called Gantry to streamline product development and improve performance across its various applications. This unified approach has revolutionized how Slack builds and launches new features, enabling faster development cycles and enhanced user experiences.

The Evolution of Slack’s Frontend Architecture

As Slack’s user base grew, the company faced challenges with its early architectural decisions. Initially designed for smaller workspaces, the frontend architecture needed to scale to accommodate larger organizations. Some of the limitations included:

• Loading all workspace data upfront
• Executing all JavaScript simultaneously
• Inconsistent build processes across teams
• Unique architectures for different products

These factors led to slower performance and difficulties in knowledge sharing among development teams.

Core Concepts of Gantry

To address these challenges, Slack developed Gantry with five key goals in mind:

1. On-Demand Data Fetching: Gantry implements incremental data loading, fetching information only when necessary. This approach reduces initial query times and allows for parallel data requests, resulting in faster first meaningful paint.
2. Client-Side Rendering: By rendering the application client-side, Slack can serve boot data from edge servers, minimizing latency and improving performance for users worldwide.
3. Optimized Asset Loading: Gantry front-loads API requests and lazy-loads assets, parallelizing data downloads with JavaScript execution for faster boot times.
4. Local Caching: Utilizing the Service Worker API, Gantry caches assets and data on users’ devices, enabling quicker subsequent boots and even offline functionality.
5. Streamlined Development: Gantry provides a standardized development and deployment process, allowing engineers to focus on product development rather than tooling and infrastructure.

Benefits of a Shared Framework

The adoption of Gantry has yielded numerous advantages for Slack’s development teams:

• Code Sharing: Common webpack configurations enable code sharing across applications, reducing redundancy and improving efficiency.
• Faster Subsequent Loads: Thanks to Service Workers and browser caching, loading additional Gantry applications becomes significantly faster after the initial load.
• Enhanced Engineering Productivity: A unified architecture allows engineers to quickly familiarize themselves with different codebases, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Impact on Slack’s Product Development

Gantry has transformed Slack’s approach to building and launching new features. By providing a solid foundation for quick boots and efficient development, the framework has enabled teams to:

• Develop and launch new products more rapidly
• Automatically adopt best performance practices
• Streamline product development across teams
• Improve overall productivity and collaboration

The Future of Gantry

While Gantry has already made a significant impact on Slack’s development process, the company continues to refine and expand the framework. As more teams adopt Gantry for new projects, they benefit from a wealth of shared knowledge and best practices.

Slack’s commitment to innovation and efficiency through frameworks like Gantry demonstrates its dedication to providing the best possible user experience while empowering its development teams to work smarter and faster.

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