Byte

A simple, performance-focused web framework that works on Bun, Deno, and browsers.

import { Byte } from '@bit-js/byte';

export default new Byte()
    .get('/', (ctx) => ctx.body('Hi'));

Features

• Fast: Internally use Blitz, the fastest router in the JS ecosystem.
• Lightweight: Under 30kB in size including dependencies.
• Multi-runtime: Works on all JS runtimes without any adapters.

Benchmarks

Byte starts up 1.5x faster than Hono with LinearRouter.

[446.37ms] Byte: Build 1000 routes
[635.84ms] Hono: Build 1000 routes

Byte matches routes 5x faster than Hono with RegExpRouter.

"/user":
- Hono: 5377ns
- Byte: 1064ns

"/user/comments":
- Hono: 5289ns
- Byte: 1103ns

"/user/avatar":
- Hono: 5153ns
- Byte: 1082ns

"/event/:id":
- Hono: 5792ns
- Byte: 1455ns

"/event/:id/comments":
- Hono: 5726ns
- Byte: 1631ns

"/status":
- Hono: 5358ns
- Byte: 1036ns

"/deeply/nested/route/for/testing":
- Hono: 5253ns
- Byte: 1047ns

See benchmarks for more details.

Concepts

All the basics you need to know to use Byte.

Context

Context is an object represents the current request.

• ctx.path: The parsed request pathname.
• ctx.pathStart: The start index of the pathname in the full URL string (req.url). This property can be useful for subdomain matching.
• ctx.pathEnd: The end index of the path. When query parameters are presented, path end is set to the start of the query, otherwise it is set to the length of the URL.
• ctx.params: The parsed URL parameters. Defaults to undefined with static routes.
• ctx.state: This property stores validators result. Defaults to undefined with routes that have no validators.
• ctx.req: The original request object.

Response init

Attach response init properties and use later.

• ctx.headers: Headers record.
• ctx.status: The status code.
• ctx.statusText: The status text.

You can use ctx as a ResponseInit directly.

new Response('Hi', ctx);

Handler

Handlers are functions that accepts the request context as parameter and return a Response object.

() => new Response('Hi');
(ctx) => new Response(ctx.params.id);

If your handler doesn't use the request context, in certain cases the router compiler will optimize the matcher to not pass in the request context as a parameter.

Defining routes

You can define routes with the syntax method(path, handler).

new Byte()
    // Handle GET method 
    .get('/', () => new Response('Hi'))
    // Handle PUT method
    .put('/user/:id', (ctx) => new Response(ctx.params.id))
    // Handle all request method
    .any('/*', () => new Response('Not found'));

Route patterns

Parametric and wildcard patterns are supported.

'/:id' // Only one parameter
'/user/:id/name/:name' // Multiple parameter
'/nav/*' // Wildcard parameter (does not match /nav)
'/user/:id/*' // All patterns combined

Like other frameworks, Byte passes the parsed parameter values to ctx.params, but wildcard parameter is named $ instead of *.

Validators

Validators are functions that parse and validate incoming request data.

new Byte()
    .get('/', {
        body: async (ctx) => {
            try {
                // Parse body as text
                return await ctx.req.text();
            } catch (_) {
                // Return a response directly
                return new Response('Something went wrong');
            }
        }
    }, ctx => new Response(ctx.state.body));

Parsed data is passed into ctx.state as a property and can be used in the request handler.

If a Response object is returned from the validator, it will be used instead of the handler response.

If the validator returns a Promise it should be properly marked as async for the compiler to detect.

The validator name must be a valid JavaScript variable name.

Actions

Actions are functions that executes before validators.

new Byte()
    .use((ctx) => {
        // Preparations
    })
    .use((ctx) => {
        // Do something else
    });

If a Response object is returned from any action function, it will be used directly. If the action returns a Promise it should be properly marked as async for the compiler to detect.

Plugins

Plugins are objects with a plug() function that modify the app instance.

import type { Plugin } from '@bit-js/byte';

const plugin = {
    plug(app) {
        // Do something with the app instance
        // Route types are not preserved
        // You should not add route handlers
    };
};

new Byte().register(plugin);

Plugins are meant to be used by third party libraries to add functionalities.

Fetch

To obtain the fetch handler:

app.fetch;

To rebuild the fetch function:

app.build();

Client

Byte provides a client implementation with route type inference.

To use it, first export the type of your app.

const app = new Byte()
    .get('/', (ctx) => ctx.body('Hi'))
    .get('/user/:id', (ctx) => ctx.body(ctx.params.id))
    .post('/text', {
        body: async ctx => await ctx.req.text()
    }, (ctx) => ctx.body(ctx.state.body))

export type App = typeof app;

Then use it in client code.

import type { App } from './app';
import { bit } from '@bit-js/byte';

const app = bit<App>('http://localhost:3000');

const msg = await app.get('/'); 
await msg.text(); // 'Hi'

const id = await app.get('/user/:id', {
    params: { id: 90 }
});
await msg.text(); // '90'

const body = await app.post('/text', {
    body: 'Hi'
});
await body.text(); // 'Hi'

You can also pass in a custom fetch function which accepts a Request object and returns a Promise<Response> object.

bit<App>('http://localhost:3000', { fetch: myFetch });

To set default request options.

bit<App>('http://localhost:3000', { 
    // RequestInit
    init: { keepalive: true }
});

Unit testing

Use this client for server-side unit testing only.

import server from './server';

// This loads server-side code
const app = server.client();

// Use like Bit client
const res = await app.get('/');

Only one test client should be created for each Byte instance.

Utilities

Sending response

Response utilities should be used for client type inference.

// Send a response with the provided BodyInit (text, streams, binary format)
ctx.body('Hi');

// Send a response with no body
ctx.head();

// Send a primitive value
ctx.value(0);

// Send plain text response
ctx.text('Hi');

// Send binary response (Unrecognizable format)
ctx.binary(buffer);

// Send HTML response
ctx.html('<p>Hi</p>');

// Send XML response
ctx.xml('<text>Hi</text>'); 

// Send JSON payload
ctx.json({ hello: 'world' }); 

// Server-sent events
ctx.events(stream); 

// Redirection
ctx.redirect(location, statusCode); 

Creating responses

import { send } from '@bit-js/byte';

// Return a function that returns the cached values
send.static('Hi', responseInit?); // () => new Response('Hi')

Body parsers

Use body parsers to parse request body and handle errors.

import { parse } from '@bit-js/byte';

app.post('/text', {
    body: parse.text({
        // Do parsing with request body if specified
        then(data) {
            // If a `Response` object is returned.
            // It will be used instead of the handler response.
        },

        // Handle error if specified
        catch(error) {
            // Should return a Response or Promise<Response>
            // You can omit this and use the native error handler depending on the JS runtime
        }
    })
});

Available parsers are:

• parse.text: Parse request body as text.
• parse.json: Parse request body as JSON.
• parse.blob: Parse request body as Blob.
• parse.form: Parse request body as FormData.
• parse.buffer: Parse request body as ArrayBuffer.

Query parsers

Use query parsers to get parameter values out of a query string.

import { query } from '@bit-js/byte';

// Get the first value of parameter 'id' from query as a string
query.get('id'); // parse to string or null if parameter does not exist

// Get the first value of parameter 'id' from query as a number
query.get('id', { type: 'number' }); // parse to number or NaN

// Get a multiple values of parameter 'category' from query
query.get('category', {
    // Value type
    type: 'string',

    // Maximum values to obtain
    maxLength: 10
}); // parse to string[]

// Check whether 'darkMode' parameter exists
// 'maxValues' is ignored if specified with type 'bool'
query.get('darkMode', { type: 'bool' }); // parse to boolean

// Create a parser with a schema
query.schema({
    name: { type: 'string' },
    age: { type: 'number' },
    items: { type: 'number', maxLength: 10 },
    darkMode: { type: 'bool' },
}); // parse to { name: string, age: number, items: number[], darkMode: boolean } or null if any parameter does not match

All query parsers return a function to parse query parameters from a request context.

(ctx: BaseContext) => any;

The results get decoded using a custom decodeURIComponent implementation by default. To disable this behavior set query.decodeValue to false.

You can manually decode a value using query.decode.

// Works like decodeURIComponent but it returns the original string if the string is invalid
query.decode(str);

CORS

Set CORS headers on every requests.

import { cors } from '@bit-js/byte';

// Allow all origins
app.use(cors());

// Custom options
app.use(cors(options));

Available options are:

interface CORSOptions {
    allowOrigin?: string; // Defaults to '*'
    allowMethods?: string | string[];
    exposeHeaders?: string | string[];
    maxAge?: number;
    allowCredentials?: boolean;
    allowHeaders?: string | string[];
}

CSRF

A simple CSRF protection layer by checking request origin.

import { csrf } from '@bit-js/byte';

// Check with current request URL origin
app.use(csrf());

// Custom options
app.use(csrf(options));

Available options are:

interface CSRFOptions {
    origins?: string[];
    verify?: (origin: string) => boolean;
    fallback?: (ctx: BaseContext) => any;
}

Timing

A Server-Timing helper.

import { timing } from '@bit-js/byte';

// Create a timing schema
const createMetrics = timing({
    // With description
    db: 'Measure database queries',

    // No description
    id: null
});

// Use in requests
app.get('/users', (ctx) => {
    const metrics = createMetrics();

    // Start measuring
    metrics.start('db');
    queryFromDatabase(ctx);
    metrics.end('db');

    // Set `Server-Timing` header
    metrics.set(ctx);

    // Send the measured result
    return ctx.value(metrics.db, ctx);
});

Other utils

Check out @bit-js/web-utils, a performance-focused web utilities library for all runtimes.