Hono Web Framework

Overview

Hono (炎, "flame" in Japanese) is a small, ultrafast web framework built on Web Standards (Request/Response/fetch). It runs anywhere: Cloudflare Workers, Deno Deploy, Bun, Node.js, AWS Lambda, and any WinterCG-compatible runtime — with the same code. Hono's router is one of the fastest available, and its middleware system, built-in JSX support, and RPC client make it a strong choice for edge APIs, BFFs, and lightweight full-stack apps.

When to Use This Skill

Use when building a REST or RPC API for edge deployment (Cloudflare Workers, Deno Deploy)
Use when you need a minimal but type-safe server framework for Bun or Node.js
Use when building a Backend for Frontend (BFF) layer with low latency requirements
Use when migrating from Express but wanting better TypeScript support and edge compatibility
Use when the user asks about Hono routing, middleware, c.req, c.json, or hc() RPC client

How It Works

Step 1: Project Setup

Cloudflare Workers (recommended for edge):

npm create hono@latest my-api
# Select: cloudflare-workers
cd my-api
npm install
npm run dev    # Wrangler local dev
npm run deploy # Deploy to Cloudflare

Bun / Node.js:

mkdir my-api && cd my-api
bun init
bun add hono

// src/index.ts (Bun)
import { Hono } from 'hono';

const app = new Hono();

app.get('/', c => c.text('Hello Hono!'));

export default {
  port: 3000,
  fetch: app.fetch,
};

Step 2: Routing

import { Hono } from 'hono';

const app = new Hono();

// Basic methods
app.get('/posts', c => c.json({ posts: [] }));
app.post('/posts', c => c.json({ created: true }, 201));
app.put('/posts/:id', c => c.json({ updated: true }));
app.delete('/posts/:id', c => c.json({ deleted: true }));

// Route params and query strings
app.get('/posts/:id', async c => {
  const id = c.req.param('id');
  const format = c.req.query('format') ?? 'json';
  return c.json({ id, format });
});

// Wildcard
app.get('/static/*', c => c.text('static file'));

export default app;

Chained routing:

app
  .get('/users', listUsers)
  .post('/users', createUser)
  .get('/users/:id', getUser)
  .patch('/users/:id', updateUser)
  .delete('/users/:id', deleteUser);

Step 3: Middleware

Hono middleware works exactly like fetch interceptors — before and after handlers:

import { Hono } from 'hono';
import { logger } from 'hono/logger';
import { cors } from 'hono/cors';
import { bearerAuth } from 'hono/bearer-auth';

const app = new Hono();

// Built-in middleware
app.use('*', logger());
app.use('/api/*', cors({ origin: 'https://myapp.com' }));
app.use('/api/admin/*', bearerAuth({ token: process.env.API_TOKEN! }));

// Custom middleware
app.use('*', async (c, next) => {
  c.set('requestId', crypto.randomUUID());
  await next();
  c.header('X-Request-Id', c.get('requestId'));
});

Available built-in middleware: logger, cors, csrf, etag, cache, basicAuth, bearerAuth, jwt, compress, bodyLimit, timeout, prettyJSON, secureHeaders.

Step 4: Request and Response Helpers

app.post('/submit', async c => {
  // Parse body
  const body = await c.req.json<{ name: string; email: string }>();
  const form = await c.req.formData();
  const text = await c.req.text();

  // Headers and cookies
  const auth = c.req.header('authorization');
  const token = getCookie(c, 'session');

  // Responses
  return c.json({ ok: true });                        // JSON
  return c.text('hello');                             // plain text
  return c.html('<h1>Hello</h1>');                    // HTML
  return c.redirect('/dashboard', 302);              // redirect
  return new Response(stream, { status: 200 });       // raw Response
});

Step 5: Zod Validator Middleware

import { zValidator } from '@hono/zod-validator';
import { z } from 'zod';

const createPostSchema = z.object({
  title: z.string().min(1).max(200),
  body: z.string().min(1),
  tags: z.array(z.string()).default([]),
});

app.post(
  '/posts',
  zValidator('json', createPostSchema),
  async c => {
    const data = c.req.valid('json'); // fully typed
    const post = await db.post.create({ data });
    return c.json(post, 201);
  }
);

Step 6: Route Groups and App Composition

// src/routes/posts.ts
import { Hono } from 'hono';

const posts = new Hono();

posts.get('/', async c => { /* list posts */ });
posts.post('/', async c => { /* create post */ });
posts.get('/:id', async c => { /* get post */ });

export default posts;

// src/index.ts
import { Hono } from 'hono';
import posts from './routes/posts';
import users from './routes/users';

const app = new Hono().basePath('/api');

app.route('/posts', posts);
app.route('/users', users);

export default app;

Step 7: RPC Client (End-to-End Type Safety)

Hono's RPC mode exports route types that the `

hono

Documentation

Hono Web Framework

Overview

When to Use This Skill

How It Works

Step 1: Project Setup

Step 2: Routing

Step 3: Middleware

Step 4: Request and Response Helpers

Step 5: Zod Validator Middleware

Step 6: Route Groups and App Composition

Step 7: RPC Client (End-to-End Type Safety)

Use Cases

Quick Info

Tags

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