SSR in dev (2.0)

[egoist]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Vite 2.0 beta doesn't seem to have any sort of SSR solution included, I assume it's still in development and things might catch up later?

Describe the solution you'd like

A new transformRequest API to load and transform a URL and get the result that is optimized for server:

transformRequest(url, { ssr: true })

Plugins should also be able to tell if it's requesting the build for server.

Describe alternatives you've considered

No other solution is available, maybe I'm missing something.

Additional context

Trying to build something like Nuxt.js using Vite, SSR in dev is necessary.

[remorses]

Can you elaborate on what transformRequest would do?

[egoist]

Can you elaborate on what transformRequest would do?

transformRequest already exists (https://vitejs.dev/guide/api-javascript.html#vitedevserver), I'm suggesting that adding a ssr option so Vite and plugins can apply server optimizations like:

• Setting import.meta.env.SERVER to true
• Maybe output in CJS format
• etc.

Then you can use it like this:

transformRequest('/render-routes/index.js', { ssr: true })
// result, string => `module.exports = { /* server-compatible code */ }`

[yyx990803]

Yes, this is on the roadmap, just don't want to finalize the API before I get a working prototype running on top of it.

FWIW, you can already use the build JavaScript API to bundle a route on the fly (with tweaked rollupOptions).

[arpowers]

Don't you think it's time to pay attention to SSR? For all the elegance and work that goes into the Vue/Vite ecosystem, rendering the source has always been a super complicated, undocumented experience.

Typically I'd "roll my own" solution, but very few of us understand the nuances of rendering SFCs and I've always personally felt like a decent effort to support metatags and SEO with Vue must be around the corner from the core team.

[yyx990803]

@arpowers I'll pay attention to it when I think it's time. This is open source and you are not paying me money to prioritize things you want.

[hmaurer]

@arpowers Isn't there a guide at https://ssr.vuejs.org/? Vite is a fairly new project, especially Vite 2.0 (a month old? not even). If you feel SSR is a must for your use-case I'd suggest using a more mature build tool.

[arpowers]

🙏🏼 our prayers have been answered, Evan is working on SSR

[yyx990803]

Closing (landed)

[brillout]

I'm currently building a vite-plugin-ssr, the goal being to provide an interface à la Nuxt/Next.js. Anyone else inerested in this?

[lewebsimple]

@brillout very much interested, how can we help ?

[brillout]

I'm currently building a vite-plugin-ssr

Almost done. To get a preview of what vite-plugin-ssr is going to be about: https://github.com/brillout/vite-plugin-ssr.

how can we help ?

By using it :) I will post a comment in this ticket as soon as a first beta is ready to be used.

[brillout]

Finished the implementation of https://github.com/brillout/vite-plugin-ssr. The API and overall design are stable. Beta is released. Stable 1.x release in the coming weeks.