tRPC — Adapter: Standalone

Setup

// server.ts
import { initTRPC } from '@trpc/server';
import { createHTTPServer } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import { z } from 'zod';

const t = initTRPC.create();

const appRouter = t.router({
  greet: t.procedure
    .input(z.object({ name: z.string() }))
    .query(({ input }) => ({ greeting: `Hello, ${input.name}!` })),
});

export type AppRouter = typeof appRouter;

createHTTPServer({
  router: appRouter,
  createContext() {
    return {};
  },
}).listen(3000);

console.log('Listening on http://localhost:3000');

Core Patterns

CORS with the cors package

import { createHTTPServer } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import cors from 'cors';
import { createContext } from './context';
import { appRouter } from './router';

createHTTPServer({
  middleware: cors({ origin: 'http://localhost:5173' }),
  router: appRouter,
  createContext,
}).listen(3000);

Install CORS support: npm install cors @types/cors

Custom HTTP server with createHTTPHandler

import { createServer } from 'http';
import { createHTTPHandler } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import { appRouter } from './router';

const handler = createHTTPHandler({
  router: appRouter,
  createContext() {
    return {};
  },
});

createServer((req, res) => {
  if (req.url?.startsWith('/health')) {
    res.writeHead(200);
    res.end('OK');
    return;
  }
  handler(req, res);
}).listen(3000);

basePath for URL prefix stripping

import { createServer } from 'http';
import { createHTTPHandler } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import { appRouter } from './router';

const handler = createHTTPHandler({
  router: appRouter,
  basePath: '/trpc/',
});

createServer((req, res) => {
  if (req.url?.startsWith('/trpc/')) {
    return handler(req, res);
  }
  res.statusCode = 404;
  res.end('Not Found');
}).listen(3000);

The basePath option strips the prefix before routing, so /trpc/greet resolves to the greet procedure.

HTTP/2 with createHTTP2Handler

import http2 from 'http2';
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { createHTTP2Handler } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import type { CreateHTTP2ContextOptions } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import { appRouter } from './router';

const tlsKey = readFileSync('./certs/server.key');
const tlsCert = readFileSync('./certs/server.crt');

async function createContext(opts: CreateHTTP2ContextOptions) {
  return {};
}

const handler = createHTTP2Handler({
  router: appRouter,
  createContext,
});

const server = http2.createSecureServer(
  { key: tlsKey, cert: tlsCert },
  (req, res) => {
    handler(req, res);
  },
);

server.listen(3001);

Limiting batch size with maxBatchSize

import { createHTTPServer } from '@trpc/server/adapters/standalone';
import { appRouter } from './router';

createHTTPServer({
  router: appRouter,
  maxBatchSize: 10,
}).listen(3000);

Requests batching more than maxBatchSize operations are rejected with a 400 Bad Request error. Set maxItems on your client's httpBatchLink to the same value to avoid exceeding the limit.

Common Mistakes

HIGH No CORS configuration for cross-origin requests

Wrong:

createHTTPServer({
  router: appRouter,
  createContext() {
    return {};
  },
}).listen(3000);

Correct:

import cors from 'cors';

createHTTPServer({
  middleware: cors({ origin: 'http://localhost:5173' }),
  router: appRouter,
  createContext() {
    return {};
  },
}).listen(3000);

The standalone adapter has no CORS handling by default. Cross-origin browser requests fail silently because preflight OPTIONS requests receive no CORS headers.

Source: www/docs/server/adapters/standalone.md

See Also

• server-setup -- initTRPC.create(), router/procedure definition, context
• adapter-express -- alternative adapter when you need Express middleware ecosystem
• adapter-fetch -- alternative adapter for edge/serverless runtimes
• subscriptions -- adding real-time subscriptions to a standalone server