What is CloveJS?

CloveJS is a Node.js HTTP framework built on one idea: the filesystem is the configuration. Routes, WebSocket endpoints, services, injectable values and middlewares are discovered by scanning directories. There is no registration step, no module graph to declare, and no decorators.

// src/api/v1/users/[id].get.ts
import { get } from "clovejs"

export default get(async (req, res, ctx) => {
  return ctx.users.findById(Number(req.params.id))
})

That file is the route GET /api/v1/users/:id. The ctx.users service exists because src/services/users.ts exists, and it is typed because clove dev regenerates a declaration file whenever the directory changes.

Design principles

Convention over configuration, enforced at boot. Conventions only help if they are reliable. If a filename and its handler wrapper disagree — say login.post.ts exporting get(...) — the project refuses to start and names the file to fix. You never debug a route that silently did not register.

DI without ceremony. Dependencies are plain files that export a value or a factory. Each declares a lifetime — singleton, session or request — and the container handles the rest. Singletons are fully resolved before the server accepts traffic, so reading ctx.db inside a handler is synchronous and safe.

Types you did not write. clove types performs a path-level scan: it reads filenames, never executes modules. That keeps generation fast and means a module that throws at import time cannot break your editor.

Escape hatches everywhere. The JSON middleware steps aside the moment you set a non-JSON content type. res.raw is the untouched Node ServerResponse. And the whole framework can be mounted inside an existing Express app rather than owning the process.

What it is not

CloveJS does not ship an ORM, a validation library, a template engine, or an auth system. It gives you routing, a DI container, a middleware pipeline, sessions and WebSockets — and gets out of the way for everything else.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer
• TypeScript is optional. A JavaScript project uses the same conventions with the directories at the project root instead of under src/.

Next

• Getting started — install and run
• Project structure — what each directory means