Module Federation in Plone

Module Federation is a JavaScript technology based on webpack that handles dependency resolution and the loading/importing of modules, even if they come from external, remote bundles.

A bundle is a set of JavaScript modules which provides some functionality and can be run on its own.

A typical web project often includes multiple bundles to provide all the necessary JavaScript functionality.

In Plone, Module Federation helps us to prevent loading the same dependencies multiple times.

Think of a Plone add-on with a JavaScript bundle which uses Leaflet, Select2 and jQuery. Those dependencies are also used by the Plone core JavaScript bundle "Mockup" and other add-ons. These dependencies can - and should - be shared among the different bundles.

This talk explains the concepts behind Module Federation and how we use it in Plone to optimize loading speed.