Using Bun.serve()
's static
option, you can run your frontend and backend in the same app with no extra steps.
To get started, import HTML files and pass them to the static
option in Bun.serve()
.
import dashboard from "./dashboard.html";
import homepage from "./index.html";
const server = Bun.serve({
// Add HTML imports to `static`
static: {
// Bundle & route index.html to "/"
"/": homepage,
// Bundle & route dashboard.html to "/dashboard"
"/dashboard": dashboard,
},
// Enable development mode for:
// - Detailed error messages
// - Rebuild on request
development: true,
// Handle API requests
async fetch(req) {
// ...your API code
if (req.url.endsWith("/api/users")) {
const users = await Bun.sql`SELECT * FROM users`;
return Response.json(users);
}
// Return 404 for unmatched routes
return new Response("Not Found", { status: 404 });
},
});
console.log(`Listening on ${server.url}`);
$ bun run app.ts
The web starts with HTML, and so does Bun's fullstack dev server.
To specify entrypoints to your frontend, import HTML files into your JavaScript/TypeScript/TSX/JSX files.
import dashboard from "./dashboard.html";
import homepage from "./index.html";
These HTML files are used as routes in Bun's dev server you can pass to Bun.serve()
.
Bun.serve({
static: {
"/": homepage,
"/dashboard": dashboard,
}
fetch(req) {
// ... api requests
},
});
When you make a request to /dashboard
or /
, Bun automatically bundles the <script>
and <link>
tags in the HTML files, exposes them as static routes, and serves the result.
An index.html file like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Home</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./reset.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./styles.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
<script type="module" src="./sentry-and-preloads.ts"></script>
<script type="module" src="./my-app.tsx"></script>
</body>
</html>
Becomes something like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Home</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/index-[hash].css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
<script type="module" src="/index-[hash].js"></script>
</body>
</html>
To use React in your client-side code, import react-dom/client
and render your app.
{% codetabs %}
import dashboard from "../public/dashboard.html";
import { serve } from "bun";
serve({
static: {
"/": dashboard,
},
async fetch(req) {
// ...api requests
return new Response("hello world");
},
});
import "./styles.css";
import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";
import { App } from "./app.tsx";
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
const root = createRoot(document.getElementById("root"));
root.render(<App />);
});
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Dashboard</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
<script type="module" src="../src/frontend.tsx"></script>
</body>
</html>
body {
background-color: red;
}
export function App() {
return <div>Hello World</div>;
}
{% /codetabs %}
When building locally, enable development mode by setting development: true
in Bun.serve()
.
import homepage from "./index.html";
import dashboard from "./dashboard.html";
Bun.serve({
static: {
"/": homepage,
"/dashboard": dashboard,
}
+ development: true,
fetch(req) {
// ... api requests
},
});
When development
is true
, Bun will:
- Include the
SourceMap
header in the response so that devtools can show the original source code - Disable minification
- Re-bundle assets on each request to a .html file
When serving your app in production, set development: false
in Bun.serve()
.
- Enable in-memory caching of bundled assets. Bun will bundle assets lazily on the first request to an
.html
file, and cache the result in memory until the server restarts. - Enables
Cache-Control
headers andETag
headers - Minifies JavaScript/TypeScript/TSX/JSX files
Bun's bundler plugins are also supported when bundling static routes.
To configure plugins for Bun.serve
, add a plugins
array in the [serve.static]
section of your bunfig.toml
.
For example, enable TailwindCSS on your routes by installing and adding the bun-plugin-tailwind
plugin:
$ bun add bun-plugin-tailwind
[serve.static]
plugins = ["bun-plugin-tailwind"]
This will allow you to use TailwindCSS utility classes in your HTML and CSS files. All you need to do is import tailwindcss
somewhere:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Home</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="tailwindcss" />
</head>
<body>
<!-- the rest of your HTML... -->
</body>
</html>
Or in your CSS:
@import "tailwindcss";
Any JS file or module which exports a valid bundler plugin object (essentially an object with a name
and setup
field) can be placed inside the plugins
array:
[serve.static]
plugins = ["./my-plugin-implementation.ts"]
Bun will lazily resolve and load each plugin and use them to bundle your routes.
Bun uses HTMLRewriter
to scan for <script>
and <link>
tags in HTML files, uses them as entrypoints for Bun's bundler, generates an optimized bundle for the JavaScript/TypeScript/TSX/JSX and CSS files, and serves the result.
-
<script>
processing- Transpiles TypeScript, JSX, and TSX in
<script>
tags - Bundles imported dependencies
- Generates sourcemaps for debugging
- Minifies when
development
is nottrue
inBun.serve()
<script type="module" src="./counter.tsx"></script>
- Transpiles TypeScript, JSX, and TSX in
-
<link>
processing- Processes CSS imports and
<link>
tags - Concatenates CSS files
- Rewrites
url
and asset paths to include content-addressable hashes in URLs
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./styles.css" />
- Processes CSS imports and
-
<img>
& asset processing- Links to assets are rewritten to include content-addressable hashes in URLs
- Small assets in CSS files are inlined into
data:
URLs, reducing the total number of HTTP requests sent over the wire
-
Rewrite HTML
- Combines all
<script>
tags into a single<script>
tag with a content-addressable hash in the URL - Combines all
<link>
tags into a single<link>
tag with a content-addressable hash in the URL - Outputs a new HTML file
- Combines all
-
Serve
- All the output files from the bundler are exposed as static routes, using the same mechanism internally as when you pass a
Response
object tostatic
inBun.serve()
.
- All the output files from the bundler are exposed as static routes, using the same mechanism internally as when you pass a
This works similarly to how Bun.build
processes HTML files.
- Client-side hot reloading isn't wired up yet. It will be in the future.
- This doesn't support
bun build
yet. It also will in the future.