Overview

Hono (meaning “flame” in Japanese) is an ultrafast, lightweight web framework designed around the Web Standards API. Unlike traditional Node.js frameworks that rely on platform-specific APIs, Hono uses standard Request and Response objects, making your code portable across every major JavaScript runtime.

Key Features

• Ultrafast Router: The built-in RegExpRouter avoids linear loops, delivering exceptional routing performance that consistently tops benchmarks.
• Lightweight: The hono/tiny preset is under 12KB with zero dependencies, using only the Web Standard API.
• Multi-Runtime: Write once, deploy anywhere — Cloudflare Workers, Fastly Compute, Deno, Bun, AWS Lambda, Lambda@Edge, Vercel, and Node.js all supported from a single codebase.
• Batteries Included: Built-in middleware for CORS, JWT auth, caching, compression, logging, and more. Plus a rich ecosystem of third-party middleware.
• First-Class TypeScript: Full TypeScript support with type-safe route parameters, request validation, and RPC-style client generation via hono/client.

How It Works

Hono exposes an Express-like API surface while running on modern Web Standards underneath. You define routes using familiar patterns like app.get(), app.post(), and middleware via app.use(). The framework handles request parsing, routing, and response generation through the standard Fetch API.

Agent Integration

AI agents can use Hono to rapidly scaffold API endpoints for tool servers, webhook handlers, and MCP server implementations. Its zero-config setup (npm create hono@latest) and minimal boilerplate make it ideal for agent-driven code generation workflows where speed and correctness matter.

Installation

npm create hono@latest
# or add to an existing project:
npm install hono

Quick Example

import { Hono } from "hono"
const app = new Hono()

app.get("/", (c) => c.text("Hello Hono!"))
app.get("/json", (c) => c.json({ message: "Hello" }))

export default app