cloudflare/vibesdk

This skill teaches how to build apps that deploy cleanly through the space deploy pipeline. Every project committed to a space is built by @cloudflare/worker-bundler (createApp when there are static assets, createWorker when there are none) and served on a Dynamic Worker via WorkerLoader. Get the conventions right and the preview "just works". Get them wrong and you get a blank page, a 500, or a Build failed error.

How the pipeline works

When deploy_space(branch) is called, the space DO:

1. Reads every file from the branch's working tree (skipping .git/).
2. Parses wrangler.json / wrangler.jsonc / wrangler.toml for main, compatibility_date, compatibility_flags, and [assets].
3. If [assets].directory is set, files under that directory become static assets served host-side by handleAssetRequest. Everything else is built into a Worker via createApp (with server: <main>).
4. If no assets directory is configured, only createWorker({ entryPoint: <main> }) is run. The output is loaded as a Dynamic Worker; all requests go to the Worker.
5. Previews are served at /space/:name/preview/:branch/*. Responses with content-type: text/html are run through HTMLRewriter, which prefixes root-relative src / href / action attributes with the preview base path. JS-side fetches and dynamic imports are NOT rewritten.

Practical consequences:

• You can rely on root-relative src="/foo.js" and href="/style.css" in HTML. They will be rewritten to the preview path automatically.
• You cannot rely on root-relative paths inside JS strings: fetch("/api/x"), new URL("/foo", location.origin), dynamic import("/lib.js"). These hit the wrong path under the preview prefix. Use relative paths (./api/x, import.meta.url) or read the base path from <base href> / a meta tag injected at build time.
• The <base href> tag is also rewritten if present — using it lets all relative URLs resolve against the preview path.

Project layout

A typical full-stack space project:

/
├── wrangler.json          # required for non-trivial setups
├── package.json           # npm deps (text-only packages, see limits below)
├── src/
│   └── index.ts           # server entry: export default { fetch }
└── public/                # static assets directory (configurable)
    ├── index.html
    ├── app.js             # compiled, no JSX
    └── styles.css

A static-only SPA can skip src/ entirely — just wrangler.json + public/ is enough as long as main points to a minimal pass-through worker or you accept that all requests fall through assets.

Wrangler config

Minimum viable wrangler.json:

{
  "main": "src/index.ts",
  "compatibility_date": "2025-04-01",
  "assets": {
    "directory": "./public",
    "html_handling": "auto-trailing-slash",
    "not_found_handling": "single-page-application"
  }
}

Notes:

• main is required when there's any server code. The bundler also auto-detects src/index.ts, src/index.js, index.ts, index.js if missing.
• compatibility_date defaults to 2025-04-01 if omitted. Set it explicitly for newer features.
• Add "compatibility_flags": ["nodejs_compat"] only if you actually need Node built-ins.
• assets.directory is the only way to ship static files. Files outside this directory are bundled into the Worker or ignored — they will not be reachable via URL.
• html_handling: "auto-trailing-slash" is usually what you want for multi-page sites; SPAs should also set not_found_handling: "single-page-application" so deep links return index.html.

TOML works too (wrangler.toml), but the parser only handles top-level scalar fields plus an [assets] table — no inline tables, no env overrides. Prefer JSON.

Server entry: one Durable Object class named App

Your entire backend is one Durable Object. Your main module exports a class named App extending DurableObject. The platform loads it as a Cloudflare Durable Object Facet of the host SpaceDO and forwards every non-asset request — including WebSocket upgrades — to your App.fetch(request).

Do not export default { fetch }. A default fetch handler will be ignored. There is no separate worker; the DO is the worker.

// src/index.ts
import { DurableObject } from "cloudflare:workers";

export class App extends DurableObject {
  async fetch(request: Request): Promise<Response> {
    const url = new URL(request.url);

    // Lazy schema init on the first request. Idempotent.
    this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(`
      CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS notes (
        id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
        body TEXT NOT NULL
      )
    `);

    if (url.pathname === "/api/notes" && request.method === "POST") {
      const { body } = await request.json<{ body: string }>();
      this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(`INSERT INTO notes (body) VALUES (?)`, body);
      return new Response(null, { status: 201 });
    }
    if (url.pathname === "/api/notes") {
      const rows = this.ctx.storage.sql
        .exec(`SELECT id, body FROM notes ORDER BY id DESC`)
        .toArray();
      return Response.json(rows);
    }
    return new Response("Not found", { status: 404 });
  }
}

Or with Hono inside the DO:

import { DurableObject } from "cloudflare:workers";
import { Hono } from "hono";

export class App extends DurableObject {
  private app = new Hono()
    .get("/api/hello", (c) => c.json({ msg: "hi" }))
    .post("/api/notes", async (c) => {
      const { body } = await c.req.json<{ body: string }>();
      this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(`INSERT INTO notes (body) VALUES (?)`, body);
      return c.json({ ok: true });
    });

  async fetch(request: Request) {
    return this.app.fetch(request);
  }
}

When [assets] is configured, static files take priority — your fetch only sees requests that didn't match an asset. For a SPA, put index.html in public/ and App.fetch only handles /api/*.

State and storage

State lives on this.ctx.storage. No env.DB exists; you do not need to declare any binding. The DO's storage is a per-(space, branch) SQLite database that survives redeploys.

• this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(sql, ...params) — full SQLite. Returns a cursor with .toArray(), .one(), .columnNames, etc.
• this.ctx.storage.kv.get(key) / .put(key, value) — simple KV backed by SQLite.
• this.ctx.storage.transactionSync(() => { ... }) — atomic batch inside the same DO instance.

// SQL
this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS counter (n INTEGER)`);
const cur = this.ctx.storage.sql.exec(`SELECT n FROM counter LIMIT 1`).toArray();
const n = (cur[0]?.n as number) ?? 0;

// KV
const last = this.ctx.storage.kv.get<number>("last_seen") ?? 0;
this.ctx.storage.kv.put("last_seen", Date.now());

Use the DO's storage for all persistent state — users, sessions, content, settings, anything that should survive a reload. Do not use localStorage or sessionStorage for primary data; they are per-browser, per-origin, and lost on incognito or any other browser.

WebSockets

The platform forwards Upgrade: websocket requests transparently into App.fetch. Use the standard Durable Object hibernation API:

export class App extends DurableObject {
  async fetch(request: Request) {
    const upgrade = request.headers.get("Upgrade");
    if (upgrade === "websocket") {
      const { 0: client, 1: server } = new WebSocketPair();
      this.ctx.acceptWebSocket(server);
      return new Response(null, { status: 101, webSocket: client });
    }
    return new Response("not found", { status: 404 });
  }

  webSocketMessage(ws: WebSocket, message: string | ArrayBuffer) {
    // Broadcast to every connected client (chat-style fan-out).
    for (const peer of this.ctx.getWebSockets()) {
      peer.send(typeof message === "string" ? message : new Uint8Array(message));
    }
  }

  webSocketClose(_ws: WebSocket, _code: number, _reason: string, _wasClean: boolean) {
    // Cleanup if needed.
  }
}

acceptWebSocket + webSocketMessage is the right pattern for multi-connection use cases (chat rooms, multiplayer, presence) because the DO can hibernate between messages without losing connections.

Per-entity grouping (chat rooms, per-user records)

You get one App DO per (space, branch) — a single instance, not a namespace. Do not call idFromName or try to declare a DO binding in wrangler.json; both are rejected. For multi-room / multi-user state, partition rows with a column in the App's SQLite:

CREATE TABLE messages (
  room_id TEXT NOT NULL,
  user_id TEXT NOT NULL,
  body TEXT NOT NULL,
  ts INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT (strftime('%s','now') * 1000)
);
CREATE INDEX messages_by_room ON messages (room_id, ts);

Then route by room_id inside App.fetch. SQLite is fast enough that sharing the same table across rooms is fine for prototyping; if you later need stronger isolation, attach room_id to a tag and use acceptWebSocket(ws, [room_id]) so getWebSockets(room_id) returns only that room's sockets.

What you cannot declare

• durable_objects.bindings in wrangler.json. The platform extracts your App class automatically. Adding bindings fails the deploy with a clear error.
• new_sqlite_classes / migrations. Same reason. Your App's storage is set up by the platform.
• d1_databases, r2_buckets, kv_namespaces. Not available. Everything goes in this.ctx.storage.

Static asset rules (read this twice)

This is where most preview failures happen. The browser eventually runs your assets — the bundler does not transform them. So:

NEVER ship JSX in a <script type="module"> (or any other script tag). Browsers cannot parse JSX.

This page will be blank with a SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<':

<script type="module">
  import React from "https://esm.sh/react@18";
  const App = () => <div>hi</div>;   // ← browser dies here
</script>

Fix one of these three ways:

1. Pre-compile — write JSX in a build step (Vite/esbuild/tsup) and emit plain JS into public/. Best for production.

2. React.createElement by hand — works without a build step but is verbose.

3. @babel/standalone — only for prototypes. Load Babel before the script and use type="text/babel". The modern @babel/preset-react defaults to the automatic JSX runtime, which emits import { jsx } from "react/jsx-runtime". Browsers will reject that bare specifier unless your importmap maps it. Always ship a complete importmap alongside the Babel script:

   <script type="importmap">
   {
     "imports": {
       "react": "https://esm.sh/react@18.3.1",
       "react/jsx-runtime": "https://esm.sh/react@18.3.1/jsx-runtime",
       "react-dom": "https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.3.1",
       "react-dom/client": "https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.3.1/client"
     }
   }
   </script>
   <script src="https://unpkg.com/@babel/standalone/babel.min.js"></script>
   <script type="text/babel" data-type="module" data-presets="react">
     import React from "react";
     import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";
     const App = () => <div>hi</div>;
     createRoot(document.getElementById("root")).render(<App />);
   </script>
   

   data-type="module" is required for import to work inside the Babel script. Import React from the importmap key ("react") — not from a hard-coded esm.sh URL — so your code and Babel's emitted react/jsx-runtime import resolve to the same React instance.

   If you really cannot ship react/jsx-runtime in the importmap, force Babel to the legacy classic runtime instead so it emits React.createElement calls and never touches react/jsx-runtime:

   <script
     type="text/babel"
     data-type="module"
     data-presets="react"
     data-plugins='[["transform-react-jsx", { "runtime": "classic" }]]'
   >
     import React from "https://esm.sh/react@18.3.1";  /* must be in scope */
     const App = () => <div>hi</div>;
   </script>
   

   The classic runtime requires React to be in lexical scope (because <div> becomes React.createElement("div")). The automatic runtime (default) does not, but needs react/jsx-runtime resolvable.

Symptom-to-fix index

Other asset gotchas

• Binary assets are not extracted from npm packages. Fonts, images, and .wasm shipped via npm tarballs will be missing. Put binaries directly in public/ instead.
• Paths in JS need care under preview: prefer import.meta.url, relative paths, or a runtime base detected from document.baseURI. Don't hard-code /api/... in client code; use ./api/... or read a base from a <meta> tag.
• Trailing slashes matter for auto-trailing-slash mode: /about serves about.html, /about/ serves about/index.html. Pick one shape and link consistently.
• No CSS preprocessors at runtime — ship .css, not .scss. Compile first if you need Sass.
• Importmaps work since they're inline JSON. Use them to avoid bundling React/etc. for prototypes — but watch the dual-React trap below.

The dual-React trap (the #1 cause of "blank page + useContext is null`)

esm.sh bundles a package's peer dependencies into the package itself unless you tell it otherwise. So this importmap looks correct but ships two copies of React — one for your app, another nested inside framer-motion:

<!-- BROKEN: framer-motion has its own React inside, hooks crash with `Cannot read properties of null (reading 'useContext')` -->
<script type="importmap">
{
  "imports": {
    "react": "https://esm.sh/react@18.2.0",
    "react-dom": "https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.2.0/client",
    "framer-motion": "https://esm.sh/framer-motion@11"
  }
}
</script>

The symptom is exactly: blank background + console errors like

TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'useContext')
  at u (SwitchLayoutGroupContext.mjs:1:1)

because the nested React instance has no provider in the tree.

Fix: append ?external=react,react-dom (and any other shared peers) to every esm.sh URL that has React as a peer dep. Pin the exact same React version everywhere too.

<!-- CORRECT: one React shared across the whole importmap -->
<script type="importmap">
{
  "imports": {
    "react": "https://esm.sh/react@18.3.1",
    "react/jsx-runtime": "https://esm.sh/react@18.3.1/jsx-runtime",
    "react-dom": "https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.3.1",
    "react-dom/client": "https://esm.sh/react-dom@18.3.1/client",
    "framer-motion": "https://esm.sh/framer-motion@11?external=react,react-dom",
    "lucide-react": "https://esm.sh/lucide-react@0.400.0?external=react,react-dom"
  }
}
</script>

Apply ?external=... to every React-consuming dep (UI libraries, icon sets, animation libs, headless components). Same rule for vue, solid-js, etc. if you swap the framework.

If a project needs more than two or three of these packages, stop using the importmap path — switch to option 1 (pre-compile with Vite/esbuild) so the bundl