FAQ

Developer FAQ

Technical FAQ for developers integrating with PWFabric. For end-user/product questions, see the main FAQ.

Getting started

What is PWFabric?

PWFabric is the surface operating system for building digital interfaces. It provides the engine packages, APIs, and infrastructure to create composable surfaces at any scale.

Do I need coding experience to use PWFabric?

PWFabric is primarily designed for developers. The authoring package requires TypeScript/JavaScript knowledge. However, the PhiWebs product built on PWFabric offers a visual editor (PhiCo) for non-developers.

How do I get started?

Install the authoring package via pnpm: pnpm add @phimajor-solutions/pwfabric-authoring. Then follow the Quickstart to run an exported app on your own host or to write your first block.

Can I use PWFabric with my existing stack?

PWFabric’s packages are written for React 19. Anything that can call a REST API and render React can consume PhiWebs Surfaces; framework adapters for Vue, Svelte, or vanilla JS are not part of the supported surface today.

Technical questions

What is a Surface?

A Surface is a composable digital interface built from blocks. Surfaces can be pages, dashboards, forms, or any other UI layout. They are defined declaratively and rendered by the PWFabric runtime.

What are Blocks?

Blocks are the building units of surfaces. Each block type (heading, text, button, container, image, etc.) encapsulates UI and behavior. Blocks can be nested, configured, and composed to create complex interfaces.

How does API authentication work?

The PWFabric API uses World-based authentication. Each request requires the X-World-ID header. For production, you also need a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

Can I create custom blocks?

Yes. Custom blocks are written with defineBlock() from @phimajor-solutions/pwfabric-authoring: a stable type, a Zod props schema, default values and a React component. See defineBlock().

Is PWFabric open source?

The engine is source-available under two licences. The interface packages (pwfabric-contracts, pwfabric-authoring) are Apache-2.0. The engine packages (pwfabric-core, pwfabric-runtime, pwfabric-runner, pwfabric-embed) are Business Source License 1.1, which permits production use — including hosting apps for your own customers and self-hosting a downloaded pwapp — and reserves only offering PWFabric itself as a competing hosted service. Each version becomes Apache-2.0 four years after its release. See Licensing and Self-hosting.

The PhiWebs platform around the engine — the composer, factory, billing, operator console and hosting — is proprietary and not part of the open engine.

Integration & deployment

Does PWFabric support SSO?

Yes. SSO with SAML 2.0 and OIDC is available on Enterprise plans. You configure providers in World settings → Security → SSO, or programmatically via the SSO admin API.

Can I use my own database?

PWFabric manages its own database for surface definitions and metadata. For your application data, you can integrate any database and connect it via data sources.

Still have questions?

Licensing