# SSR Architecture
Mizan's SSR adapter is a **Django template backend** rendering through an
**embedded V8 engine inside the Mizan Rust binary** (`cores/mizan-rust-ssr`).
No external JS runtime serves requests — node and bun are build-time tools
only, and no frontend adapter imports an SSR runtime or meta-framework.
```python
TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'mizan.ssr.MizanTemplates',
'DIRS': [BASE_DIR / 'frontend'],
'OPTIONS': {
'bundles': BASE_DIR / 'frontend' / '.mizan' / 'ssr',
'timeout': 5,
},
}
]
```
`render(request, 'components/Hello.tsx', context)` renders a React component
instead of a Django/Jinja2 template. **The template name IS a `.tsx`/`.jsx`
file path**, resolved against `DIRS`; `get_template` returns a
`MizanTemplate` wrapping the resolved component. The context dict becomes
the component's props (`request` and `csrf_token` stripped). Rendered output
is wrapped in `
…
` plus a
`` hydration
payload the Mizan kernel hydrates from — server-validated data crossing
one way, as props.
## The engine
`SsrEngine` (`cores/mizan-rust-ssr`) embeds a `deno_core` V8 runtime
composed with `deno_web`, so the web-platform globals react-dom touches
(`TextEncoder`/`TextDecoder`, `MessagePort`, timers) are real
implementations, not shims — a partial polyfill is silent-failure-shaped;
it passes until a render path hits the gap.
- **The bundle is built, the engine evals it once.** `mizan-generate`'s SSR
bundling step compiles each SSR entry component together with
`react-dom/server.browser` into a self-contained bundle that assigns
`globalThis.renderApp`. The engine evals the trusted bundle at
construction and calls `renderApp(props)` per request.
- **Props never enter evaluated source.** Per-render data crosses as a
`v8::json::parse`d value passed as a function argument, so a prop string
has no source to break out of — code injection is structurally absent,
not filtered.
- **One isolate per engine, one engine per worker thread.** V8's Locker
constraint means an engine is not `Send`; the Django side holds one
engine per (worker thread, bundle) pair.
## AFI boundary
| Side | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Backend adapter (`mizan/ssr`) | Django template-backend interface; resolves the component path to its built bundle; gathers props; wraps output for hydration |
| Rust binary (`SsrEngine`, via PyO3) | Holds the evaled bundle; parses props to a V8 value; `renderApp(props)` → HTML string |
| Build step (`mizan-generate`) | Bundles component + `react-dom/server.browser` into the `bundles` directory; the only place node/bun run |
The Python side binds the engine through PyO3 — in-process FFI, no
subprocess, no JSON-RPC framing. This is the Core-Consolidation shape:
behavior lives in the binary; languages bind to it.
## No framework runtimes
No frontend adapter imports an SSR runtime or meta-framework — Next, Nuxt,
SvelteKit, React Server Components / Flight. Those add the
client-payload-deserialization step behind the pre-auth RCE class
(CVE-2025-55182); the AFI already provides the typed, Pydantic-validated,
one-way version they would otherwise import unsafely.
The guarantee is enforced, not assumed: `cores/mizan-rust-ssr/tests/no_rsc.rs`
scans the authored SSR source and its dependencies for the forbidden token
set (`react-server-dom`, `renderToReadableStream`, `renderToPipeableStream`,
`createFromReadableStream`/`Fetch`, `use server`, `next/`, `nuxt`,
`@sveltejs/kit`) and fails on presence — re-entry is loud.
## Why template backend
- Django's template system is swappable by design (batteries included, but
replaceable).
- Django developers already use `render(request, template, context)` — no
new API to learn.
- URL routing, views, middleware, auth — all unchanged.