I think the sockets should be an optional "add-on / plugin / hook / whatever we decide to call them"
Hoops.js is an api / web service framework for Node.js. It handles traffic via RESTful http api's as well as WebSockets. All http traffic is handled by express and all WebSockets by socket.io. In hoops all of your http routes automatically get a WebSocket event bound. Hoops.js aims to be as lightweight and non-opinionated as possible with our "adapater" approach to building different pieces of the framework.
npm install hoops --save
To ge the command line tools:
sudo npm install hoops-cli -g