routup

Routup 🧙‍

Routup is a minimalistic, runtime-agnostic HTTP routing framework for Node.js, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, and Service Workers. Handlers return values directly — routup converts them to Web Response objects automatically, with built-in support for ETags, content negotiation, per-handler timeouts, and cooperative cancellation via AbortSignal.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Features
• Documentation
• Usage
• Templates
• Plugins
• Comparison
• Contributing
• License

Installation

npm install routup --save

Features

• 🚀 Runtime agnostic — Node.js, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, Service Workers
• 🌐 Web-standard APIs — built on Request / Response for portability
• 📝 Return-based handlers — return strings, objects, streams, Blobs, or Response directly
• ✨ Async middleware — onion model with event.next()
• 🧭 Pluggable router & cache — LinearRouter (default), TrieRouter, or SmartRouter (auto-selects); opt-in LRU lookup cache
• ⏱️ Per-handler timeouts — bounded execution with AbortSignal cooperative cancellation
• 🏷️ Automatic ETag & 304 — strong/weak ETags out of the box, configurable per app or disabled entirely
• 🤝 Content negotiation — accept, accept-language, accept-encoding, accept-charset helpers
• 📡 Streaming & SSE — ReadableStream responses and createEventStream() for server-sent events
• 📂 Static file serving — sendFile() with ETag, range, and MIME detection
• 🔌 Plugin system — extend with reusable, installable plugins
• 🌉 Express middleware bridge — wrap legacy (req, res, next) handlers via fromNodeHandler()
• 🧰 Tree-shakeable helpers — import only what you use
• 📁 Nestable apps — modular route composition with mount paths
• 👕 TypeScript first — fully typed API with generics
• 🤏 Minimal footprint — small core, no bloat

Documentation

To read the docs, visit https://routup.dev

Usage

Handlers

Handlers receive an event and return a value. Routup converts the return value to a Web Response automatically.

Shorthand

import { App, defineCoreHandler, defineErrorHandler, serve } from 'routup';

const app = new App();

app.get('/', defineCoreHandler(() => 'Hello, World!'));
app.get('/greet/:name', defineCoreHandler((event) => `Hello, ${event.params.name}!`));
app.use(defineErrorHandler((error) => ({ error: error.message })));

serve(app, { port: 3000 });

Verbose

import { App, defineCoreHandler, serve } from 'routup';

const app = new App();

app.use(defineCoreHandler({
    path: '/',
    method: 'GET',
    fn: () => 'Hello, World!',
}));

app.use(defineCoreHandler({
    path: '/greet/:name',
    method: 'GET',
    fn: (event) => `Hello, ${event.params.name}!`,
}));

serve(app, { port: 3000 });

Return Values

Return type	Response
string	text/plain
object / array	application/json
Response	Passed through as-is
ReadableStream	Streamed to client
Blob	Sent with blob's content type
null	Empty response (status from event.response)

Middleware

Middleware calls event.next() to continue the pipeline:

app.use(defineCoreHandler(async (event) => {
    console.log(`${event.method} ${event.path}`);
    return event.next();
}));

Pluggable router and cache

The route table is pluggable via the router option. The default LinearRouter is best for small apps; swap to TrieRouter for radix-trie matching on apps with many routes, or SmartRouter to auto-select between the two based on the registered route shape at first lookup. Each router accepts an optional cache for memoizing lookups — opt-in via LruCache (or any ICache implementation); pass null to disable.

import { App, TrieRouter, LruCache, defineCoreHandler } from 'routup';

const app = new App({
    router: new TrieRouter({ cache: new LruCache() }), // omit `cache` for no memoization
});

Timeouts and cancellation

Configure a global timeout for the whole pipeline, a default per-handler timeout, or both. When a deadline fires, event.signal is aborted so handlers can cooperatively cancel signal-aware work; if nothing recovers in time, routup returns 408 Request Timeout.

const app = new App({
    timeout: 30_000,         // entire request
    handlerTimeout: 5_000,   // default per handler; handlers can narrow further
});

app.get('/fetch', defineCoreHandler(async (event) => {
    const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com', { signal: event.signal });
    return res.json();
}));

Runtimes

Routup runs on Node.js, Bun, Deno, and Cloudflare Workers. In most cases, import from routup:

import { App, defineCoreHandler, serve } from 'routup';

const app = new App();
app.get('/', defineCoreHandler(() => 'Hello, World!'));
serve(app, { port: 3000 });

For runtime-specific APIs (e.g. toNodeHandler), use the corresponding entrypoint like routup/node.

Templates

Scaffold a new project from any starter in routup/templates with degit:

npx degit routup/templates/node-api my-app

Template	Runtime	Highlights
node-api	Node.js >=22	JSON API with @routup/body
cloudflare-worker	Cloudflare Workers	Configured with wrangler
bun-decorators	Bun	Class-based routing via @routup/decorators

Plugins

Routup is minimalistic by design. Plugins extend the framework with additional functionality.

Name	Description
assets	Serve static files from a directory
basic	Bundle of body, cookie, and query plugins
body	Read and parse the request body
cookie	Read and parse request cookies
cors	Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) middleware
decorators	Class, method, and parameter decorators
i18n	Translation and internationalization
logger	HTTP request logger with morgan-compatible tokens and presets
prometheus	Collect and serve Prometheus metrics
query	Parse URL query strings
rate-limit	Rate limit incoming requests
rate-limit-redis	Redis adapter for rate-limit
swagger-ui	Mount swagger-ui-dist on any path

Comparison

How routup stacks up against other popular Node.js routing frameworks. This is a best-effort summary; check each project's docs for the full picture.

	routup	Hono	Express	Fastify
Runtimes	Node, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare, Service Worker	Node, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare, Lambda, Vercel	Node	Node
Web-standard Request / Response	✅	✅	❌	❌
Return-based handlers	✅	✅	❌	❌
TypeScript-first	✅	✅	community types	✅
Tree-shakeable helpers	✅	✅	❌	❌
Onion middleware (next())	✅	✅	linear next()	lifecycle hooks
Pluggable router (linear / trie)	✅ linear, trie, or auto-select	trie only	linear only	radix only
Built-in ETag + 304	✅	❌	via plugin	via plugin
Per-handler timeout + AbortSignal	✅	❌	❌	server-level
Class-based routes (decorators)	✅ via plugin	❌	❌	❌
Express middleware bridge	✅ fromNodeHandler	❌	n/a	limited
Schema validation built-in	❌	❌	❌	✅

Contributing

Before starting to work on a pull request, it is important to review the guidelines for contributing and the code of conduct. These guidelines will help to ensure that contributions are made effectively and are accepted.

License

Made with 💚

Published under MIT License.