Add to existing Vite app

While vite is amazing as a devkit for client-side web applications, it requires some setup to use the server in the same application. The funny part is that there is a server running both in dev and prod, its just that you don't get access to it.

Vinxi gives you the ability to add server-side functionality (SSR) to an existing Vite app.

A typical vite app is a single-page application, with an index.html file, a public directory and a vite.config.ts file.

Lets install vinxi to get started:

bash

npm install vinxi

The first step is to make your vite app into a vinxi app. You don't need to create any new files. Vinxi works with vite.config.ts files too. You just need to change what you export from the file.

Here is an example of a vite.config.ts file that exports the same vite app as a vinxi app:

import { createApp } from "vinxi";
import { config } from "vinxi/plugins/config";

export default createApp({
  routers: [
    {
      name: "public",
      type: "static",
      dir: "./public",
    },
    {
      name: "client",
      type: "spa",
      handler: "./index.html",
      base: "/",
      plugins: () => [
        config("custom", {
          // additional vite options
        }),
        // additional vite plugins
      ],
    },
  ],
});

Now running npm run dev will start the Vinxi dev server and you will get the same experience as you did with vite.

The only difference is that you can now add server-side functionality to your app, and much more. Let's see how.

Let's imagine we need to send an email when a user submits a form. We can use the nodemailer package to do that. Let's install it.

bash

npm install nodemailer

bash

yarn add nodemailer

bash

pnpm add nodemailer

But nodemailer is not something you can use in the browser. You need to run it in node (on the server). So we need some kind of API routes. In vinxi, you can add a server handler for an API to your app.

import { createApp } from "vinxi";

export default createApp({
  routers: [
    {
      name: "public",
      type: "static",
      dir: "./public",
    },
    {
      name: "client",
      type: "spa",
      handler: "./index.html",
      base: "/",
      plugins: () => [
        config("custom", {
          // additional vite options
        }),
        // additional vite plugins
      ],
    },
    {
      name: "api",
      type: "http",
      handler: "./api.ts",
      base: "/api",
    },
  ],
});

import nodemailer from "nodemailer";
import { eventHandler } from "vinxi/http";

export default eventHandler(async (event) => {
  await nodemailer.sendMail({
    from: "",
  });

  return "done";
});

You can now hit http://localhost:3000/api from your frontend to send an email.

Add to existing Vite app ​

Add to existing Vite app