hono-inertia

Build SPA-feel apps with Inertia.js + Hono + hono/jsx

Inertia.js lets you build single-page apps without writing a separate frontend or a JSON API layer. The server returns Inertia responses (page name + props), and a thin client adapter swaps the current page component on the fly. With Hono as the server and hono/jsx as the client, you get SPA interactivity while staying inside one TypeScript stack — no React.

Reach for this when server-rendered hono/jsx is no longer enough — that is, when you need client-side state, optimistic UI, or rich forms.

Stack

• Server: hono + @hono/inertia. The inertia({ rootView }) middleware adds c.render(name, props) for returning Inertia responses.
• Client: @ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx. Provides createInertiaApp, <Link>, <Form>, <Head>, useForm, useHttp, etc., on top of @inertiajs/core and hono/jsx/dom.
• Bundling / SSR: Vite (with @cloudflare/vite-plugin when deploying to Workers) and vite-ssr-components for asset wiring. Start from the cloudflare-workers+vite Hono starter template — it has the Vite + Workers wiring already in place: https://github.com/honojs/starter/tree/main/templates/cloudflare-workers+vite.
• Page typing: @hono/inertia/vite generates pages.gen.ts so PagePropsFor<Name> resolves to the props passed to c.render(Name, ...).

Reference example

yusukebe/hono-inertia-example is the canonical layout (Hono + Inertia on Cloudflare Workers). It is written in React, so do not copy its app/client.tsx and app/root-view.tsx verbatim — those need to be rewritten against @ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx and hono/jsx. The server side (app/server.ts, route shape, Vite config, wrangler.jsonc, validation with @hono/zod-validator) transfers as-is.

https://github.com/yusukebe/hono-inertia-example

Server sketch

// app/server.ts
import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { inertia } from '@hono/inertia'
import { rootView } from './root-view'

const app = new Hono()

app.use(inertia({ rootView }))

const routes = app
  .get('/', (c) => c.render('Home', { message: 'Hono x Inertia' }))
  .get('/users', (c) => c.render('Users/Index', { users: listUsers() }))
  .get('/users/:id{[0-9]+}', (c) => {
    const id = Number(c.req.param('id'))
    const user = findUser(id)
    if (!user) return c.notFound()
    return c.render('Users/Show', { user })
  })

export default routes

c.render(name, props) returns either a full HTML document (on the first request) or a JSON Inertia page object (on subsequent client navigations) — @hono/inertia looks at the X-Inertia request header to decide.

Client sketch (hono/jsx)

// app/client.tsx
import { createInertiaApp } from '@ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx'

createInertiaApp({
  resolve: (name) => {
    const pages = import.meta.glob('./pages/**/*.tsx', { eager: true })
    return pages[`./pages/${name}.tsx`]
  },
})

Without a custom setup, the adapter mounts <App /> for you. It uses hydrateRoot (from hono/jsx/dom) when the root has data-server-rendered, and createRoot otherwise.

Page component (hono/jsx)

// app/pages/Users/Index.tsx
import { Head, Link, type PageComponent } from '@ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx'

const UsersIndex: PageComponent<'Users/Index'> = ({ users }) => (
  <main>
    <Head title='Users' />
    <h1>Users</h1>
    {users.map((u) => (
      <Link href={`/users/${u.id}`} key={u.id}>
        {u.name}
      </Link>
    ))}
  </main>
)

export default UsersIndex

PageComponent<'Users/Index'> pulls the prop type from pages.gen.ts, which is generated by @hono/inertia/vite from the server routes — so a mismatch between server and client props is a build error, not a runtime one.

Defaults

• Set jsxImportSource: "hono/jsx" in tsconfig.json.
• Use vite-ssr-components/hono (not /react) in root-view.tsx to inject the Vite client and asset tags.
• Deploy with @cloudflare/vite-plugin so wrangler deploy ships the SSR worker and the client bundle together.

Pitfalls

• @ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx is community-scoped and "partial" hono/jsx support per its README — browser rendering targets hono/jsx/dom, but server-side rendering fidelity is not React-grade. Verify SSR output for any non-trivial page.
• Inertia is not an API framework. If a non-Inertia client (mobile, third-party) needs the same data, build a separate JSON endpoint — do not try to reuse the Inertia response shape.
• Asset versioning: make sure X-Inertia-Version matches your client bundle hash, or clients silently force a full reload on every navigation.
• On Cloudflare Workers, serve the client bundle via Workers Assets (@cloudflare/vite-plugin handles this), not via fetch-to-R2.

Going deeper

• The Inertia protocol itself — short, worth reading in full: https://inertiajs.com/.
• The hono/jsx adapter API surface and typing model: https://github.com/ts-76/inertia-hono-jsx.
• The example layout to copy: https://github.com/yusukebe/hono-inertia-example.