Modulartable: Making the most of Airtable Scripting 👩‍💻👨‍💻

Extend the functionality of the Airtable Scripting App and automation environment by modularizing your scripts; learn how to write, test, document, and maintain code that will stand the test of time., gradually automate those tasks, and do so without ever having to leave Airtable!

Everything you need to do so: from information, strategy, proof-of-concepts, and reliable tooling... that is what Modulartable is all about, some year, year and a half since the start of this undertaking. It's been so long that the lines between prototypes and tools started to blur, so what better time to make your Airtable-powered solutions more of everything? 🙂

Contents

• 45+ general-purpose modules, ready for you to use, test, and combine

  • Average module size: 20 SLOCs, 210 characters (as of November 19th, 2021)

• 40+ unit tests demonstrating how to leverage Airtable as a repository for your scripts

  • over 500 lines of semi- and fully automated module testing protocols

  • existing features include automatic dependency management, bundling, and robust module version control native to Airtable
    

• eight techniques for implementing modules and modular functionality into Airtable, i.e. its Scripting app and automation environment

  • even more ways to circumvent the 50,000-character limit imposed on individual scripts, and do so at a negligible performance hit (the 50k cap is arbitrary, it exists because it needs to exist, in part so that Airtable’s hosting costs remain predictable)

  • every approach is standalone and unique, ensuring maximum flexibility in how you go about embracing the modular design pattern, one of the most powerful abstractions modern software development has to offer

  • code examples, screenshots, and a growing database of video content will help everyone learn at their own pace

  • consequently, this resource offers not one but closer to a dozen different ways to eliminate the 50,000-character limit Airtable imposes on its scripts, file-wise

Regarding potential use cases, this early version of the repo has a bit of everything until I pinpoint the focus through some feedback. Let me know what you’re trying to learn/accomplish and I’ll refine the content to better reflect your interests.

Pricing tiers

The core research with coding examples and findings. resulting from my initial pursuit of modular Airtable scripting is available at a pay-what-you-want/can pricing. Every major prototype and test case distributed through this base will be made available under the MIT license.

So, the potentially free tier includes content covering all of the technical basis for every individual adoption of Airtable modularity that I confirmed. Together with numerous code samples provided, you should be able to start your very first Airtable module repo in an afternoon. From there, you’ll have a much better idea of how well does Airtable scale in your particular scenarion.

Alternatively, the premium tier comes with some fairly comprehensive, full-featured templates that you can start using immediately with minimal or no adjustments to any of your bases.

Background

Modulartable started as an ongoing effort to document the extent of Airtable's modularity, particularly in how it pertains to the Scripting app/block and automation environment.

As of December '21, this resource has been 16 months in the making. And the primary motivation behind this soft launch is to gather feedback so that I can better refine my focus moving forward because publication prep work ended up being a way larger time investment than anticipated.

As a result, the resource in front of you is also a vast knowledge base of software development strategies centered on such DIY Airtable features. From rendering complex menus and exploring the Airtable data model through dynamic code to animating die rolls, coding the typewriter effect and even winging a working command line interface, this base will hopefully nudge your imagination on top of teaching you a bunch of valuable insight into Airtable, JavaScript, Node, and how they all fit together to form this amazingly empowering platform.