Deploy a Hono application

Deploy Hono, a lightweight web framework built on Web Standards, with the Node.js runtime on Clever Cloud.

Hono supports multiple JavaScript runtimes. This guide uses the Clever Cloud Node.js runtime with the @hono/node-server adapter.

To follow this guide with a fresh project, scaffold a new Hono application using the official CLI (you’ll need Node.js and Git). Pass -t nodejs to select the Node.js template directly. When prompted, confirm the dependency installation and select npm as package manager:

npm create hono@latest myHonoApp -- -t nodejs
cd myHonoApp
git init

Deploy Hono with Node.js

To deploy your Hono project to Clever Cloud, adapt its entry point, then create and configure the application.

Adapt the entry point

The nodejs template’s src/index.ts starts a server on port 3000 and has no shutdown handling. Adapt both behaviours before deploying.

Clever Cloud sets PORT environment variable to 8080 by default and expects the application to listen on every network interface. Read it rather than hardcoding this value to remain compatible with Request Flow port allocation, keep port 3000 as a local fallback, and set the hostname to 0.0.0.0. Also close the server on SIGINT and SIGTERM so in-flight requests can finish during a restart or zero-downtime deployment:

// src/index.ts
import { serve } from '@hono/node-server'
import { Hono } from 'hono'

const app = new Hono()

app.get('/', (c) => {
  return c.text('Hello Hono!')
})

const server = serve({
  fetch: app.fetch,
  hostname: '0.0.0.0',
  port: Number(process.env.PORT) || 3000
}, (info) => {
  console.log(`Server is running on http://localhost:${info.port}`)
})

const shutdown = () => {
  server.close((err) => {
    if (err) {
      console.error(err)
      process.exit(1)
    }
    process.exit(0)
  })
}

process.on('SIGINT', shutdown)
process.on('SIGTERM', shutdown)

The generated package.json defines three scripts: dev runs the server with live reload, build compiles TypeScript to dist/ with tsc, and start runs the compiled output with node dist/index.js.

Create a Node.js application

Install Clever Tools and create a Node.js application linked to your project folder:

npm i -g clever-tools
clever login

clever create -t node

# Or link an existing Clever Cloud application:
clever link your_app_name_or_ID

Clever Tools targets your personal organisation by default. To use another organisation, add --org ORGANISATION or -o ORGANISATION when you create or link the application.

Configure the application

clever env set CC_NODE_DEV_DEPENDENCIES install
clever env set CC_POST_BUILD_HOOK "npm run build"

By default, Clever Cloud only installs production dependencies, so typescript would be missing when tsc runs. CC_NODE_DEV_DEPENDENCIES includes development dependencies, and CC_POST_BUILD_HOOK builds dist/ before the generated start script runs. No PORT variable needs to be set for this deployment because Clever Cloud injects it automatically. If your project grows, you can increase the build or runtime instance size.

Deploy your code

The Hono template does not ignore its generated dist/ directory. Add it to .gitignore:

dist/

Then commit and deploy the project:

git add .
git commit -m "First deploy"

clever deploy
clever open

You can display your application’s URL or add a custom domain. A custom domain also requires DNS configuration:

clever domain
clever domain add your.website.tld

Learn more