Support server entry — $ vite path/to/server.js / vite.config.js#server.

[brillout]

Clear and concise description of the problem

Vite does not support server entries.

For example, the playground/ssr-vue/server.js file is not processed by Vite which means:

• The user cannot use Vite constants such as import.meta.env.
• The user cannot use TypeScript (without using an extra tool such as ts-node).
• If the user makes a change to server.js then the user has to manually stop and re-start the server.

Suggested solution

We add an argument to the CLI command vite.

$ vite ./server.js

The argument is optional and if omitted Vite behaves as it does today (it starts Vite's built-in dev server).

// server.js

import express from 'express'
import vite from 'vite'

startServer()

async function startServer() {
  const app = express()

  const { middlewares: viteMiddleware } = await vite.createServer({
    server: { middlewareMode: 'ssr' },
  })
  app.use(viteMiddleware)

  app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000)
  console.log(`Server running at http://localhost:${port}`)
}

The whole vite.loadSSRModule dance would be taken care of.

We can even consider adding support for HMR and, if HMR is not applicable, to automatically reload the server by killing process.env.PORT with e.g. kill-port. (It's a common convention to use process.env.PORT as server port.)

The user can also define the server entry with vite.config.js#server.

// vite.config.js
export default {
  server: 'server.js'
}

# No need to specify the server entry here
$ vite

Alternative

No response

Additional context

This ticket is part of Vite Server RFC.

Validations

• Follow our Code of Conduct
• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that request the same feature to avoid creating a duplicate.

[mquandalle]

Sounds similar to https://github.com/antfu/vite-node ?

[brillout]

@mquandalle Yes, but it needs to be built into Vite for brillout/research#3.

[mkilpatrick]

This would be awesome! I was just about to post about wanting to create a plugin that creates a server in middleware mode (ssr) and either works with Vite or allows you to replace the server with your own. This issue seems to fit that bill. In my scenario, I don't want the user to have to define a server.js though. I want it to be provided by my custom plugin out of the box.

Sort of on the same topic, but could it be possible to allow for a custom index.html (like ssr mode allows) but allow it to be passed to the vite dev server (instead of it assuming there's a local file at the root)? The only real reason I use ssr mode is because, similar to abstracting away server.js from users, I want to do the same for the index.html and entry.js. I've already accomplished this via my own custom package that people need to use. Would love to be able to do these things via a plugin or natively with Vite.

[brillout]

Alternatively to vite-node, there is also vavite.