Skip to content

MVC Pattern

Elysia is pattern agnostic framework, we the decision up to you and your team for coding patterns to use.

However, we found that there are several who are using MVC pattern (Model-View-Controller) on Elysia, and found it's hard to decouple and handling with types.

This page is a guide to use Elysia with MVC pattern.

Controller

1 Elysia instance = 1 controller.

DO NOT create a separate controller, use Elysia itself as a controller instead.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
,
t
} from 'elysia'
// ❌ don't: new
Elysia
()
.
get
('/',
Controller
.
hi
)
// ✅ do: new
Elysia
()
// Get what you need .
get
('/', ({
query
: {
name
} }) => {
Service
.
do1
(
name
)
Service
.
do2
(
name
)
}, {
query
:
t
.
Object
({
name
:
t
.
String
()
}) })

Elysia does a lot to ensure type integrity, and if you pass an entire Context type to a controller, these might be the problems:

  1. Elysia type is complex and heavily depends on plugin and multiple level of chaining.
  2. Hard to type, Elysia type could change at anytime, especially with decorators, and store
  3. Type casting may cause lost of type integrity or unable to ensure type and runtime code.
  4. Harder for Sucrose (Elysia's "kind of" compiler) to statically analyze your code

We recommended using object destructuring to extract what you need and pass it to "Service" instead.

By passing an entire Controller.method to Elysia is an equivalent of having 2 controllers passing data back and forth. It's against the design of framework and MVC pattern itself.

typescript
// ❌ don't:
import { 
Elysia
, type
Context
} from 'elysia'
abstract class
Controller
{
static
root
(
context
:
Context
<any, any>) {
return
Service
.
doStuff
(
context
.stuff)
} } new
Elysia
()
.
get
('/',
Controller
.
root
)

Here's an example of what it looks like to do something similar in NestJS.

typescript
// ❌ don't:
abstract class InternalController {
    static root(res: Response) {
        return Service.doStuff(res.stuff)
    }
}

@Controller()
export class AppController {
    constructor(private appService: AppService) {}

    @Get()
    root(@Res() res: Response) {
        return InternalController.root(res)
    }
}

Instead treat an Elysia instance as a controller itself.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
} from 'elysia'
import {
HiService
} from './service'
// ✅ do: new
Elysia
()
.
use
(
HiService
)
.
get
('/', ({
Hi
,
stuff
}) => {
Hi
.
doStuff
(
stuff
)
})

If you would like to call or perform unit test on controller, use Elysia.handle.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
} from 'elysia'
import {
HiService
} from './service'
const
app
= new
Elysia
()
.
use
(
HiService
)
.
get
('/', ({
Hi
,
stuff
}) => {
Hi
.
doStuff
(
stuff
)
})
app
.
handle
(new
Request
('http://localhost/'))
.
then
(
console
.
log
)

Or even better, use Eden with end-to-end type safety.

typescript

import { 
Elysia
} from 'elysia'
import {
treaty
} from '@elysiajs/eden'
import {
HiService
} from './service'
const
AController
= new
Elysia
()
.
use
(
HiService
)
.
get
('/', ({
Hi
,
stuff
}) =>
Hi
.
doStuff
(
stuff
))
const
controller
=
treaty
(
AController
)
const {
data
,
error
} = await
controller
.
index
.
get
()

Service

Service is a set of utility/helper functions for each module, in our case, Elysia instance.

Any logic that can be decoupled from controller may be live inside a Service.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
,
t
} from 'elysia'
abstract class
Service
{
static
fibo
(
number
: number): number {
if(
number
< 2)
return
number
return
Service
.
fibo
(
number
- 1) +
Service
.
fibo
(
number
- 2)
} } new
Elysia
()
.
get
('/fibo', ({
body
}) => {
return
Service
.
fibo
(
body
)
}, {
body
:
t
.
Numeric
()
})

If your service doesn't need to store a property, you may use abstract class and static instead to avoid allocating class instance.

But if your service involve local mutation eg. caching, you may want to initiate an instance instead.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
,
t
} from 'elysia'
class
Service
{
public
cache
= new
Map
<number, number>()
fibo
(
number
: number): number {
if(
number
< 2)
return
number
if(this.
cache
.
has
(
number
))
return this.
cache
.
get
(
number
)!
const
a
= this.
fibo
(
number
- 1)
const
b
= this.
fibo
(
number
- 2)
this.
cache
.
set
(
number
- 1,
a
)
this.
cache
.
set
(
number
- 2,
b
)
return
a
+
b
} } new
Elysia
()
.
decorate
({
Service
: new
Service
()
}) .
get
('/fibo', ({
Service
,
body
}) => {
return
Service
.
fibo
(
body
)
}, {
body
:
t
.
Numeric
()
})

You may use Elysia.decorate to embed a class instance into Elysia, or not, it depends on your usecase.

Using Elysia.decorate is an equivalent of using dependency injection in NestJS:

typescript
// Using dependency injection
@Controller()
export class AppController {
    constructor(service: Service) {}
}

// Using separate instance from dependency
const service = new Service()

@Controller()
export class AppController {
    constructor() {}
}

Request Dependent Service

If your service are going to be used in multiple instance, or may require some property from request. We recommended creating an dedicated Elysia instance as a Service instead.

Elysia handle plugin deduplication by default so you don't have to worry about performance, as it's going to be Singleton if you specified a "name" property.

typescript
import { 
Elysia
} from 'elysia'
const
AuthService
= new
Elysia
({
name
: 'Service.Auth' })
.
derive
({
as
: 'scoped' }, ({
cookie
: {
session
} }) => {
return {
Auth
: {
user
:
session
.
value
} } }) .
macro
(({
onBeforeHandle
}) => ({
isSignIn
(
value
: boolean) {
onBeforeHandle
(({
Auth
,
error
}) => {
if (!
Auth
?.
user
|| !
Auth
.
user
) return
error
(401)
}) } })) const
UserController
= new
Elysia
()
.
use
(
AuthService
)
.
guard
({
isSignIn
: true
}) .
get
('/profile', ({
Auth
: {
user
} }) =>
user
)

Model

Model or DTO (Data Transfer Object) is handle by Elysia.t (Validation).

We recommended using Elysia reference model or creating an object or class of DTOs for each module.

  1. Using Elysia's model reference
typescript
import { 
Elysia
,
t
} from 'elysia'
const
AuthModel
= new
Elysia
({
name
: 'Model.Auth' })
.
model
({
'auth.sign':
t
.
Object
({
username
:
t
.
String
(),
password
:
t
.
String
({
minLength
: 5
}) }) }) const
UserController
= new
Elysia
({
prefix
: '/auth' })
.
use
(
AuthModel
)
.
post
('/sign-in', async ({
body
,
cookie
: {
session
} }) => {
return {
success
: true
} }, {
body
: 'auth.sign'
})

This allows approach provide several benefits.

  1. Allow us to name a model and provide auto-completion.
  2. Modify schema for later usage, or perform remapping.
  3. Show up as "models" in OpenAPI compliance client, eg. Swagger.

View

You may use Elysia HTML to do Template Rendering.

Elysia support JSX as template engine using Elysia HTML plugin

You may create a rendering service or embedding view directly is up to you, but according to MVC pattern, you are likely to create a seperate service for handling view instead.

  1. Embedding View directly, this may be useful if you have to render multiple view, eg. using HTMX:
tsx
import { 
Elysia
} from 'elysia'
new
Elysia
()
.
get
('/', ({
query
: {
name
} }) => {
return ( <
h1
>hello {
name
}</
h1
>
) })
  1. Dedicated View as a service:
tsx
import { 
Elysia
,
t
} from 'elysia'
abstract class
Render
{
static
root
(
name
?: string) {
return <
h1
>hello {
name
}</
h1
>
} } new
Elysia
()
.
get
('/', ({
query
: {
name
} }) => {
return
Render
.
root
(
name
)
}, {
query
:
t
.
Object
({
name
:
t
.
String
()
}) })

As being said, Elysia is pattern agnostic framework, and we only a recommendation guide for handling Elysia with MVC.

You may choose to follows or not is up to your and your team preference and agreement.