RFC: generate a server.js output file that can be directly run with node without @react-router/serve

[remorses]

Currently you have to use the package @react-router/serve to serve a react-router website. This adds complexity, especially in Docker images that now have to install this additional package.

Instead react-router could simply generate a server.js file in the output server directory to start a server.

Here is how a Vite plugin that does the following could be easily implemented:

const VIRTUAL_MODULE_ID = '\0virtual:react-router-server/server'

export function reactRouterServerPlugin({ port = '8080' } = {}): Plugin {
    return {
        name: 'vite-react-router-server',
        enforce: 'post',
        resolveId(id) {
            if (id === VIRTUAL_MODULE_ID) {
                return id
            }
        },
        load(id) {
            if (id === VIRTUAL_MODULE_ID) {
                return /* js */ `
                import { startServer } from '@react-router/dev'
                startServer({ port: process.env.PORT || '${port}', module: import('virtual:react-router/server-build') })
                `
            }
        },
        config(config, { isSsrBuild }) {
            if (!isSsrBuild) return
            const reactRouterConfig = (function () {
                if (!('__reactRouterPluginContext' in config)) {
                    return
                }

                return config.__reactRouterPluginContext as ReactRouterPluginContext
            })()

            config.build ??= {}
            config.build.rollupOptions ??= {}

            let _input = config.build.rollupOptions.input ?? {}
            let inputObject: Record<string, string> = {}
            if (typeof _input === 'string') {
                inputObject = { main: _input }
            } else if (Array.isArray(_input)) {
                inputObject = _input.reduce(
                    (acc, cur, i) => ((acc[`entry${i}`] = cur), acc),
                    {},
                )
            }

            // adds a server.js output file in the build/server directory
            inputObject['server'] = VIRTUAL_MODULE_ID

            config.build.rollupOptions.input = inputObject
        },
    }
}

[brophdawg11]

Currently you have to use the package @react-router/serve to serve a react-router website

This is not true - there are multiple official adapters to allow you to run in node, cloudflare, etc. Here's the template for a simple express server: https://github.com/remix-run/react-router-templates/tree/main/node-custom-server. If you ask around in the discord server, community folks have made similar adapters for use with far node http, hono, etc.