Config

General

preset

Use preset option or NITRO_PRESET environment variable for custom production preset.

Preset for development mode is always nitro_dev and default node_server for production building a standalone Node.js server.

The preset will automatically be detected when the preset option is not set and running in known environments.

export default defineConfig({
  preset: "cloudflare_pages", // deploy to Cloudflare Pages
});

debug

• Default: false (true when DEBUG environment variable is set)

Enable debug mode for verbose logging and additional development information.

export default defineConfig({
  debug: true,
});

logLevel

• Default: 3 (1 when the testing environment is detected)

Log verbosity level. See consola for more information.

export default defineConfig({
  logLevel: 4, // verbose logging
});

runtimeConfig

• Default: { nitro: { ... }, ...yourOptions }

Server runtime configuration.

Note: nitro namespace is reserved.

export default defineConfig({
  runtimeConfig: {
    apiSecret: "default-secret", // override with NITRO_API_SECRET
  },
});

compatibilityDate

Deployment providers introduce new features that Nitro presets can leverage, but some of them need to be explicitly opted into.

Set it to latest tested date in YYYY-MM-DD format to leverage latest preset features.

If this configuration is not provided, Nitro will use "latest" behavior by default.

export default defineConfig({
  compatibilityDate: "2025-01-01",
});

static

• Default: false

Enable static site generation mode.

export default defineConfig({
  static: true, // prerender all routes
});

Features

features

• Default: {}

Enable built-in features.

runtimeHooks

• Default: auto-detected (enabled if there is at least one nitro plugin)

Enable runtime hooks for request and response.

websocket

• Default: false

Enable WebSocket support.

export default defineConfig({
  features: {
    runtimeHooks: true,
    websocket: true, // enable WebSocket support
  },
});

experimental

• Default: {}

Enable experimental features.

openAPI

• Default: false

Enable /_scalar, /_swagger and /_openapi.json endpoints.

typescriptBundlerResolution

Enable TypeScript bundler module resolution. See TypeScript#51669.

asyncContext

Enable native async context support for useRequest().

sourcemapMinify

Set to false to disable experimental sourcemap minification.

envExpansion

Allow env expansion in runtime config. See #2043.

database

Enable experimental database support. See Database.

tasks

Enable experimental tasks support. See Tasks.

export default defineConfig({
  experimental: {
    typescriptBundlerResolution: true,
    asyncContext: true,
    envExpansion: true,
    database: true,
    tasks: true,
  },
});

openAPI

Top-level OpenAPI configuration.

You can pass an object to modify your OpenAPI specification:

openAPI: {
  meta: {
    title: 'My Awesome Project',
    description: 'This might become the next big thing.',
    version: '1.0'
  }
}

These routes are disabled by default in production. To enable them, use the production key. "runtime" allows middleware usage, and "prerender" is the most efficient because the JSON response is constant.

openAPI: {
    // IMPORTANT: make sure to protect OpenAPI routes if necessary!
    production: "runtime", // or "prerender"
}

If you like to customize the Scalar integration, you can pass a configuration object like this:

openAPI: {
  ui: {
    scalar: {
      theme: 'purple'
    }
  }
}

Or if you want to customize the endpoints:

openAPI: {
  route: "/_docs/openapi.json",
  ui: {
    scalar: {
      route: "/_docs/scalar"
    },
    swagger: {
      route: "/_docs/swagger"
    }
  }
}

future

• Default: {}

New features pending for a major version to avoid breaking changes.

nativeSWR

Uses built-in SWR functionality (using caching layer and storage) for Netlify and Vercel presets instead of falling back to ISR behavior.

export default defineConfig({
  future: {
    nativeSWR: true,
  },
});

storage

• Default: {}

Storage configuration.

export default defineConfig({
  storage: {
    redis: {
      driver: "redis",
      url: "redis://localhost:6379",
    },
  },
});

devStorage

• Default: {}

Storage configuration overrides for development mode.

export default defineConfig({
  devStorage: {
    redis: {
      driver: "fs",
      base: "./data/redis", // use filesystem in development
    },
  },
});

database

Database connection configurations. Requires experimental.database: true.

database: {
  default: {
    connector: "sqlite",
    options: { name: "db" }
  }
}

devDatabase

Database connection configuration overrides for development mode.

export default defineConfig({
  devDatabase: {
    default: {
      connector: "sqlite",
      options: { name: "db-dev" }, // separate dev database
    },
  },
});

renderer

• Type: false | { handler?: string, static?: boolean, template?: string }

Points to main render entry (file should export an event handler as default).

export default defineConfig({
  renderer: {
    handler: "~/renderer", // path to the render handler
  },
});

serveStatic

• Type: boolean | 'node' | 'deno' | 'inline'
• Default: depends on the deployment preset used.

Serve public/ assets in production.

Note: It is highly recommended that your edge CDN (Nginx, Apache, Cloud) serves the .output/public/ directory instead to enable compression and higher level caching.

export default defineConfig({
  serveStatic: "node", // serve static assets using Node.js
});

noPublicDir

• Default: false

If enabled, disables .output/public directory creation. Skips copying public/ dir and also disables pre-rendering.

export default defineConfig({
  noPublicDir: true, // skip public directory output
});

publicAssets

Public asset directories to serve in development and bundle in production.

If a public/ directory is detected, it will be added by default, but you can add more by yourself too!

It's possible to set Cache-Control headers for assets using the maxAge option:

  publicAssets: [
    {
      baseURL: "images",
      dir: "public/images",
      maxAge: 60 * 60 * 24 * 7, // 7 days
    },
  ],

The config above generates the following header in the assets under public/images/ folder:

cache-control: public, max-age=604800, immutable

The dir option is where your files live on your file system; the baseURL option is the folder they will be accessible from when served/bundled.

compressPublicAssets

• Default: { gzip: false, brotli: false, zstd: false }

If enabled, Nitro will generate a pre-compressed (gzip, brotli, and/or zstd) version of supported types of public assets and prerendered routes larger than 1024 bytes into the public directory. Default compression levels are used. Using this option you can support zero overhead asset compression without using a CDN.

export default defineConfig({
  compressPublicAssets: {
    gzip: true,
    brotli: true, // enable gzip and brotli pre-compression
  },
});

serverAssets

Assets can be accessed in server logic and bundled in production.

export default defineConfig({
  serverAssets: [
    {
      baseName: "templates",
      dir: "./templates", // bundle templates/ as server assets
    },
  ],
});

modules

• Default: []

An array of Nitro modules. Modules can be a string (path), a module object with a setup function, or a function.

export default defineConfig({
  modules: [
    "./modules/my-module.ts",
    (nitro) => {
      nitro.hooks.hook("compiled", () => { /* ... */ });
    },
  ],
});

plugins

• Default: []

An array of paths to nitro plugins. They will be executed by order on the first initialization.

Note that Nitro auto-registers the plugins in the plugins/ directory.

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    "~/plugins/my-plugin.ts",
  ],
});

tasks

• Default: {}

Task definitions. Each key is a task name with a handler path and optional description.

tasks: {
  'db:migrate': {
    handler: './tasks/db-migrate',
    description: 'Run database migrations'
  }
}

scheduledTasks

• Default: {}

Map of cron expressions to task name(s).

scheduledTasks: {
  '0 * * * *': 'cleanup:temp',
  '*/5 * * * *': ['health:check', 'metrics:collect']
}

imports

• Default: false

Auto import options. Set to an object to enable. See unimport for more information.

export default defineConfig({
  imports: {
    dirs: ["./utils"], // auto-import from utils/ directory
  },
});

virtual

• Default: {}

A map from dynamic virtual import names to their contents or an (async) function that returns it.

export default defineConfig({
  virtual: {
    "#config": `export default { version: "1.0.0" }`,
  },
});

ignore

• Default: []

Array of glob patterns to ignore when scanning directories.

export default defineConfig({
  ignore: [
    "routes/_legacy/**", // skip legacy route handlers
  ],
});

wasm

• Default: {}
• Type: false | UnwasmPluginOptions

WASM support configuration. See unwasm for options.

export default defineConfig({
  wasm: {}, // enable WASM import support
});

Dev

devServer

• Default: { watch: [] }

Dev server options. You can use watch to make the dev server reload if any file changes in specified paths.

Supports port, hostname, watch, and runner options.

export default defineConfig({
  devServer: {
    port: 3001,
    watch: ["./server/plugins"],
  },
});

watchOptions

Watch options for development mode. See chokidar for more information.

export default defineConfig({
  watchOptions: {
    ignored: ["**/node_modules/**", "**/dist/**"],
  },
});

devProxy

Proxy configuration for development server.

You can use this option to override development server routes and proxy-pass requests.

{
  devProxy: {
    '/proxy/test': 'http://localhost:3001',
    '/proxy/example': { target: 'https://example.com', changeOrigin: true }
  }
}

See httpxy for all available target options.

Logging

logging

• Default: { compressedSizes: true, buildSuccess: true }

Control build logging behavior. Set compressedSizes to false to skip reporting compressed bundle sizes. Set buildSuccess to false to suppress the build success message.

export default defineConfig({
  logging: {
    compressedSizes: false, // skip compressed size reporting
    buildSuccess: false,
  },
});

Routing

baseURL

Default: / (or NITRO_APP_BASE_URL environment variable if provided)

Server's main base URL.

export default defineConfig({
  baseURL: "/app/", // serve app under /app/ prefix
});

apiBaseURL

• Default: /api

Changes the default API base URL prefix.

export default defineConfig({
  apiBaseURL: "/server/api", // api routes under /server/api/
});

handlers

Server handlers and routes.

If routes/, api/ or middleware/ directories exist inside the server directory, they will be automatically added to the handlers array.

export default defineConfig({
  handlers: [
    { route: "/health", handler: "./handlers/health.ts" },
    { route: "/admin/**", handler: "./handlers/admin.ts", method: "get" },
  ],
});

devHandlers

Regular handlers refer to the path of handlers to be imported and transformed by the bundler.

There are situations in that we directly want to provide a handler instance with programmatic usage.

We can use devHandlers but note that they are only available in development mode and not in production build.

export default defineConfig({
  devHandlers: [
    { route: "/__dev", handler: defineHandler(() => "dev-only route") },
  ],
});

routes

• Default: {}

Inline route definitions. A map from route pattern to handler path or handler options.

export default defineConfig({
  routes: {
    "/hello": "./routes/hello.ts",
    "/greet": { handler: "./routes/greet.ts", method: "post" },
  },
});

errorHandler

• Type: string | string[]

Path(s) to custom runtime error handler(s). Replaces nitro's built-in error page.

Example:

import { defineConfig } from "nitro";

export default defineConfig({
  errorHandler: "~/error",
});

export default defineErrorHandler((error, event) => {
  return new Response('[custom error handler] ' + error.stack, {
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' }
  });
});

routeRules

🧪 Experimental!

Route options. It is a map from route pattern (following rou3) to route options.

When cache option is set, handlers matching pattern will be automatically wrapped with defineCachedHandler.

See the Cache API for all available cache options.

Example:

routeRules: {
  '/blog/**': { swr: true },
  '/blog/**': { swr: 600 },
  '/blog/**': { static: true },
  '/blog/**': { cache: { /* cache options*/ } },
  '/assets/**': { headers: { 'cache-control': 's-maxage=0' } },
  '/api/v1/**': { cors: true, headers: { 'access-control-allow-methods': 'GET' } },
  '/old-page': { redirect: '/new-page' }, // uses status code 307 (Temporary Redirect)
  '/old-page2': { redirect: { to:'/new-page2', statusCode: 301 } },
  '/old-page/**': { redirect: '/new-page/**' },
  '/proxy/example': { proxy: 'https://example.com' },
  '/proxy/**': { proxy: '/api/**' },
  '/admin/**': { basicAuth: { username: 'admin', password: 'secret' } },
}

prerender

Default:

{
  autoSubfolderIndex: true,
  concurrency: 1,
  interval: 0,
  failOnError: false,
  crawlLinks: false,
  ignore: [],
  routes: [],
  retry: 3,
  retryDelay: 500
}

Prerendered options. Any route specified will be fetched during the build and copied to the .output/public directory as a static asset.

Any route (string) that starts with a prefix listed in ignore or matches a regular expression or function will be ignored.

If crawlLinks option is set to true, nitro starts with / by default (or all routes in routes array) and for HTML pages extracts <a> tags and prerender them as well.

You can set failOnError option to true to stop the CI when Nitro could not prerender a route.

The interval and concurrency options lets you control the speed of pre-rendering, can be useful to avoid hitting some rate-limit if you call external APIs.

Set autoSubfolderIndex lets you control how to generate the files in the .output/public directory:

# autoSubfolderIndex: true (default)
/about -> .output/public/about/index.html
# autoSubfolderIndex: false
/about -> .output/public/about.html

This option is useful when your hosting provider does not give you an option regarding the trailing slash.

The prerenderer will attempt to render pages 3 times with a delay of 500ms. Use retry and retryDelay to change this behavior.

Directories

workspaceDir

Project workspace root directory.

The workspace (e.g. pnpm workspace) directory is automatically detected when the workspaceDir option is not set.

export default defineConfig({
  workspaceDir: "../", // monorepo root
});

rootDir

Project main directory.

export default defineConfig({
  rootDir: "./src/server",
});

serverDir

• Default: false
• Type: boolean | "./" | "./server" | string

Server directory for scanning api/, routes/, plugins/, utils/, middleware/, assets/, and tasks/ folders.

When set to false, automatic directory scanning is disabled. Set to "./" to use the root directory, or "./server" to use a server/ subdirectory.

export default defineConfig({
  serverDir: "./server", // scan server/ subdirectory
});

scanDirs

• Default: (source directory when empty array)

List of directories to scan and auto-register files, such as API routes.

export default defineConfig({
  scanDirs: ["./modules/auth/api", "./modules/billing/api"],
});

apiDir

• Default: api

Defines a different directory to scan for api route handlers.

export default defineConfig({
  apiDir: "endpoints", // scan endpoints/ instead of api/
});

routesDir

• Default: routes

Defines a different directory to scan for route handlers.

export default defineConfig({
  routesDir: "pages", // scan pages/ instead of routes/
});

buildDir

• Default: node_modules/.nitro

Nitro's temporary working directory for generating build-related files.

export default defineConfig({
  buildDir: ".nitro", // use .nitro/ in project root
});

output

• Default: { dir: '.output', serverDir: '.output/server', publicDir: '.output/public' }

Output directories for production bundle.

export default defineConfig({
  output: {
    dir: "dist",
    serverDir: "dist/server",
    publicDir: "dist/public",
  },
});

Build

builder

• Type: "rollup" | "rolldown" | "vite"
• Default: undefined (auto-detected)

Specify the bundler to use for building.

export default defineConfig({
  builder: "vite",
});

rollupConfig

Additional rollup configuration.

export default defineConfig({
  rollupConfig: {
    output: { manualChunks: { vendor: ["lodash-es"] } },
  },
});

rolldownConfig

Additional rolldown configuration.

export default defineConfig({
  rolldownConfig: {
    output: { banner: "/* built with nitro */" },
  },
});

entry

Bundler entry point.

export default defineConfig({
  entry: "./server/entry.ts", // custom entry file
});

unenv

unenv preset(s) for environment compatibility.

export default defineConfig({
  unenv: {
    alias: { "my-module": "my-module/web" },
  },
});

alias

Path aliases for module resolution.

export default defineConfig({
  alias: {
    "~utils": "./src/utils",
    "#shared": "./shared",
  },
});

minify

• Default: false

Minify bundle.

export default defineConfig({
  minify: true, // minify production bundle
});

inlineDynamicImports

• Default: false

Bundle all code into a single file instead of creating separate chunks per route.

When false, each route handler becomes a separate chunk loaded on-demand. When true, everything is bundled together. Some presets enable this by default.

export default defineConfig({
  inlineDynamicImports: true, // single output file
});

sourcemap

• Default: false

Enable source map generation. See options.

export default defineConfig({
  sourcemap: true, // generate .map files
});

node

• Default: true

Specify whether the build is used for Node.js or not. If set to false, nitro tries to mock Node.js dependencies using unenv and adjust its behavior.

export default defineConfig({
  node: false, // target non-Node.js runtimes
});

replace

Build-time string replacements.

export default defineConfig({
  replace: {
    "process.env.APP_VERSION": JSON.stringify("1.0.0"),
  },
});

commonJS

Specifies additional configuration for the rollup CommonJS plugin.

export default defineConfig({
  commonJS: {
    requireReturnsDefault: "auto",
  },
});

exportConditions

Custom export conditions for module resolution.

export default defineConfig({
  exportConditions: ["worker", "production"],
});

noExternals

• Default: false

Prevent specific packages from being externalized. Set to true to bundle all dependencies, or pass an array of package names/patterns.

export default defineConfig({
  noExternals: true, // bundle all dependencies
});

traceDeps

• Default: []

Additional dependencies to trace and include in the build output.

Supports special prefixes:

• !pkg — Exclude a built-in package from tracing.
• pkg* — Full trace: copies all package files instead of only traced ones.

export default defineConfig({
  traceDeps: [
    "sharp",
    "better-sqlite3",
    "my-pkg*", // full trace (copy all package files)
    "!unwanted-pkg", // exclude from tracing
  ],
});

traceOpts

Advanced options passed to nf3 for dependency tracing.

export default defineConfig({
  traceOpts: {
    // Options passed to @vercel/nft for file tracing
    nft: { /* ... */ },
    // Alias for module paths when tracing
    traceAlias: { "old-pkg": "new-pkg" },
    // Preserve or set file permissions when copying (true or octal like 0o755)
    chmod: true,
    // Transform traced files before copying
    transform: [
      { filter: (id) => id.endsWith(".js"), handler: (code) => code },
    ],
    // Hook into tracing lifecycle
    hooks: {
      tracedPackages(pkgs) {
        console.log("Traced packages:", Object.keys(pkgs));
      },
    },
  },
});

oxc

OXC options for rolldown builds. Includes minify and transform sub-options.

export default defineConfig({
  oxc: {
    minify: { compress: true, mangle: true },
  },
});

Advanced

dev

• Default: true for development and false for production.

⚠️ Caution! This is an advanced configuration. Things can go wrong if misconfigured.

export default defineConfig({
  dev: true, // force development mode behavior
});

typescript

Default: { strict: true, generateRuntimeConfigTypes: false, generateTsConfig: false }

TypeScript configuration options including strict, generateRuntimeConfigTypes, generateTsConfig, tsConfig, generatedTypesDir, and tsconfigPath.

export default defineConfig({
  typescript: {
    strict: true,
    generateTsConfig: true,
  },
});

hooks

⚠️ Caution! This is an advanced configuration. Things can go wrong if misconfigured.

Nitro hooks. See hookable for more information.

export default defineConfig({
  hooks: {
    compiled(nitro) {
      console.log("Build compiled successfully!");
    },
  },
});

commands

⚠️ Caution! This is an advanced configuration. Things can go wrong if misconfigured.

Preview and deploy command hints are usually filled by deployment presets.

export default defineConfig({
  commands: {
    preview: "node ./server/index.mjs",
  },
});

devErrorHandler

⚠️ Caution! This is an advanced configuration. Things can go wrong if misconfigured.

A custom error handler function for development errors.

export default defineConfig({
  devErrorHandler: (error, event) => {
    return new Response(`Dev error: ${error.message}`, { status: 500 });
  },
});

framework

• Default: { name: "nitro", version: "<current>" }

Framework information. Used by presets and build info. Typically set by higher-level frameworks (e.g. Nuxt).

export default defineConfig({
  framework: { name: "my-framework", version: "2.0.0" },
});

Preset options

firebase

The options for the firebase functions preset. See Preset Docs

export default defineConfig({
  firebase: {
    gen: 2, // use Cloud Functions 2nd gen
    region: "us-central1",
  },
});

vercel

The options for the vercel preset. See Preset Docs

export default defineConfig({
  vercel: {
    config: { runtime: "nodejs20.x" },
  },
});

cloudflare

The options for the cloudflare preset. See Preset Docs

export default defineConfig({
  cloudflare: {
    wrangler: { compatibility_date: "2025-01-01" },
  },
});

zephyr

The options for the zephyr preset. See Preset Docs