Use Case · Product

Form backend on the Software Lifecycle Cloud

A form backend on KERNSTACK keeps submissions in your own project: the form posts to a gateway route, a function validates and writes the submission to a table, attachments go to a bucket on presigned URLs, and a workflow routes the notification — inbox, chat, CRM — as declared steps. Marketers stop renting a third-party form host that holds the leads, and the data starts life where the follow-up happens.

Functions (WASM)NoSQL TablesObject BucketsEdge Gateway
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The engineering bottleneck with assembled stacks

A third-party form host is a small dependency with a large blast radius: it holds the submissions (your leads, your applicants, your support intake), meters your success by submission count, and exports CSVs when it feels like it. The day marketing asks “did the candidate data leave the EU?” the answer involves a vendor’s subprocessors page instead of your own architecture.

Architecture on the Software Lifecycle Cloud

The endpoint is deliberately boring: validate, store, acknowledge. Spam discipline is layered — gateway rate behaviour, a honeypot/timing check in the function, and a quarantine state for submissions the classifier distrusts. Attachments never pass through the function; the form gets presigned URLs and the submission row carries the object keys. Routing is a workflow, so “leads over this value also ping the founder” is a declared step.

Submissions are records, not emails

The moment a submission is a table row, everything downstream gets easier: deduplication is a keyed check, the weekly count is a query, the integration with the CRM is a worker reading rows instead of an inbox parser. Notification emails still happen — as a step — but they stop being the system of record for the business’s inbound demand.

  • Attachments upload straight to a bucket; the row references keys, the function never carries bytes
  • Suspect submissions land in a quarantine state a human can release — no silent spam folder of lost leads
  • Routing rules are workflow steps with an audit trail, not a vendor’s zap diagram

Forms are small; the data duties are not

A contact form collects personal data with legal duties attached — retention, erasure, residency. Keeping submissions in your European project, under the retention patterns your other tables use, turns the compliance answer into a description of your own system. That, more than the saved subscription, is why teams bring forms home.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

In layers you control: gateway-level rate behaviour, honeypot and timing signals in the function, and a quarantine state for the uncertain middle. Quarantined rows are reviewable, so aggressive filtering never silently eats a real lead.

From a workflow step after the submission is stored — the email is a notification about a record, not the record itself. Routing (which inbox, which chat, which CRM) is declared in the workflow and changeable without touching the form.

Yes, through presigned bucket URLs attached to the submission. File type and size rules are enforced at the function; the objects land in the project’s bucket under the submission’s key, governed by your retention rules.

Connected in the Project Graph

Related capabilities, architectures, and comparisons

Category PillarThe Software Lifecycle CloudWhy people and agents build, deploy, and operate on a single vertically integrated stack.Service · ComputeFunctionsGo WebAssembly HTTP handlersService · DataTablesServerless key-value and document tablesService · DataBucketsObject storage with presigned uploadService · EdgeGatewayHTTP, WebSocket, and prefix routesIndustry SolutionHealthTech Cloud SolutionsHealthTech products on KERNSTACK hold care-adjacent data — patient documents, encounter records, consent forms — in one declared project in a European zone on named infrastructure. The needs that dominate are unglamorous and absolute: know exactly where every document lives, who touched it, how consent was captured, and how a record can be frozen the day a legal hold arrives.Use Case · ProductExperiment assignmentAssignment is a pure function of the subject key and the experiment’s salt — stable across requests, no coordination needed. The function records the assignment row once and serves the variant; outcome handlers were already writing events, which now simply carry the experiment id the assignment returned. Analysis reads assignments and outcomes from neighbouring tables with the same keys.Use Case · AgenciesAgency client deliveryThe studio’s delivery shape is a template stack.json: gateway, functions or workers in the client’s stack languages, tables, buckets, and apps under one target per client, on European infrastructure the studio can name in the pitch. Previews run the same declaration; the client’s approval happens in the bound conversation with a live link. Every client’s meter is separate by construction — the studio sees delivery cost per client without allocation spreadsheets.

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