Introduction

There are several methods to get bknd up and running. You can choose between these options:

1. Run it using the CLI: That’s the easiest and fastest way to get started.
2. Use a runtime like Node, Bun or Cloudflare (workerd). This will run the API and UI in the runtime’s native server and serves the UI assets statically from node_modules.
3. Run it inside your React framework of choice like Next.js, Astro or Remix.

There is also a fourth option, which is running it inside a Docker container. This is essentially a wrapper around the CLI.

​

Basic setup

Regardless of the method you choose, at the end all adapters come down to the actual instantiation of the App, which in raw looks like this:

import { createApp, type CreateAppConfig } from "bknd";

// create the app
const config = { /* ... */ } satisfies CreateAppConfig;
const app = createApp(config);

// build the app
await app.build();

// export for Web API compliant envs
export default app;

In Web API compliant environments, all you have to do is to default exporting the app, as it implements the Fetch API.

​

Configuration (CreateAppConfig)

The CreateAppConfig type is the main configuration object for the createApp function. It has the following properties:

import type { App, InitialModuleConfigs, ModuleBuildContext } from "bknd";
import type { Connection } from "bknd/data";
import type { Config } from "@libsql/client";

type AppPlugin = (app: App) => Promise<void> | void;
type ManagerOptions = {
   basePath?: string;
   trustFetched?: boolean;
   onFirstBoot?: () => Promise<void>;
   seed?: (ctx: ModuleBuildContext) => Promise<void>;
};

type CreateAppConfig = {
   connection?:
      | Connection
      | Config;
   initialConfig?: InitialModuleConfigs;
   options?: {
      plugins?: AppPlugin[];
      manager?: ManagerOptions
   };
};

​

connection

The connection property is the main connection object to the database. It can be either an object with libsql config or the actual Connection class.

const connection = {
   url: "<url>",
   authToken: "<token>"
}

Alternatively, you can pass an instance of a Connection class directly, see Custom Connection as a reference.

If the connection object is omitted, the app will try to use an in-memory database.

​

initialConfig

As initial configuration, you can either pass a partial configuration object or a complete one with a version number. The version number is used to automatically migrate the configuration up to the latest version upon boot. The default configuration looks like this:

{
  "server": {
    "admin": {
      "basepath": "",
      "color_scheme": "light",
      "logo_return_path": "/"
    },
    "cors": {
      "origin": "*",
      "allow_methods": ["GET", "POST", "PATCH", "PUT", "DELETE" ],
      "allow_headers": ["Content-Type", "Content-Length", "Authorization", "Accept"]
    }
  },
  "data": {
    "basepath": "/api/data",
    "entities": {},
    "relations": {},
    "indices": {}
  },
  "auth": {
    "enabled": false,
    "basepath": "/api/auth",
    "entity_name": "users",
    "allow_register": true,
    "jwt": {
      "secret": "",
      "alg": "HS256",
      "fields": ["id", "email", "role"]
    },
    "cookie": {
      "path": "/",
      "sameSite": "lax",
      "secure": true,
      "httpOnly": true,
      "expires": 604800,
      "renew": true,
      "pathSuccess": "/",
      "pathLoggedOut": "/"
    },
    "strategies": {
      "password": {
        "type": "password",
        "config": {
          "hashing": "sha256"
        }
      }
    },
    "roles": {}
  },
  "media": {
    "enabled": false,
    "basepath": "/api/media",
    "entity_name": "media",
    "storage": {}
  },
  "flows": {
    "basepath": "/api/flows",
    "flows": {}
  }
}

You can use the CLI to get the default configuration:

npx bknd config --pretty

To validate your configuration against a JSON schema, you can also dump the schema using the CLI:

npx bknd schema

To create an initial data structure, you can use helpers described here.

​

options.plugins

The plugins property is an array of functions that are called after the app has been built, but before its event is emitted. This is useful for adding custom routes or other functionality. A simple plugin that adds a custom route looks like this:

import type { AppPlugin } from "bknd";

export const myPlugin: AppPlugin = (app) => {
   app.server.get("/hello", (c) => c.json({ hello: "world" }));
};

Since each plugin has full access to the app instance, it can add routes, modify the database structure, add custom middlewares, respond to or add events, etc. Plugins are very powerful, so make sure to only run trusted ones.

​

options.seed

The seed property is a function that is called when the app is booted for the first time. It is used to seed the database with initial data. The function is passed a ModuleBuildContext object:

type ModuleBuildContext = {
   connection: Connection;
   server: Hono;
   em: EntityManager;
   emgr: EventManager;
   guard: Guard;
};

const seed = async (ctx: ModuleBuildContext) => {
   // seed the database
   await ctx.em.mutator("todos").insertMany([
      { title: "Learn bknd", done: true },
      { title: "Build something cool", done: false }
   ]);
};

​

options.manager

This object is passed to the ModuleManager which is responsible for:

• validating and maintaining configuration of all modules
• building all modules (data, auth, media, flows)
• maintaining the ModuleBuildContext used by the modules

The options.manager object has the following properties:

• basePath (string): The base path for the Hono instance. This is used to prefix all routes.
• trustFetched (boolean): If set to true, the app will not perform any validity checks for the given or fetched configuration.
• onFirstBoot (() => Promise<void>): A function that is called when the app is booted for the first time.