Module Federation is a type of JavaScript architecture I invented and prototyped. Then with the help of my co-creator and the founder of Webpack — it was turned into one of the most exciting features in the Webpack 5 core (there’s some cool stuff in there, and the new API is really powerful and clean).

Module Federation allows a JavaScript application to dynamically load code from another application and  in the process, share dependencies. If an application consuming a federated module does not have a dependency needed by the federated code,  Webpack will download the missing dependency from that federated build origin.

Code is shared if it can be, but fallbacks exist in each case. Federated code can always load its dependencies but will attempt to use the consumers’ dependencies before downloading more payload. This means less code duplication and dependency sharing just like a monolithic Webpack build. While I may have invented this initial system, it was co-authored into Webpack 5 by myself (Zack Jackson) and Marais Rossouw with lots of guidance, pair-programming, and assistance from Tobias Koppers. These engineers played a key role in rewriting and stabilizing Module Federation within the Webpack 5 core. Thank you for the continued collaboration and support.

#webpack #javascript #web-development #programming