elm-pages-starter-express

This is an example of using elm-pages 3.0 with express.js.

You can see it running at https://elm-pages-v3-express.fly.dev/

Source code is available at https://github.com/blaix/elm-pages-starter-express

See discussion on elm-pages-v3 adapters at dillonkearns/elm-pages#378

The important parts

adapters/express/adapter.mjs runs at build time and puts the elm-pages renderer and express middleware and server into dist-server/. See https://elm-pages-v3.netlify.app/docs/adapters/ for details on elm-pages adapters.

After npm run build, the adapter will have generated the following files:

dist-server/server.mjs - a node express server configured for elm-pages. This can be run directly with node dist-server/server.mjs. This repo is set up to do that via npm start.

dist-server/middleware.mjs exports a default function that can be used to serve the elm-pages app via express middleware. You can use this to integrate into your existing express service, or if the generated server doesn't work for your needs. Note: Any routes you don't want handled by elm-pages must come before this middleware. You will also need to point express static middleware at dist.

Setup Instructions

npm install from the cloned repo. Before running the dev server or build, make sure to install Lamdera (see below).

npm run dev starts the dev server with hot reloading.

npm run build builds the app for production.

npm start starts the production server at server.mjs.

Deployment

This example is deployed to Fly.io, but can run anywhere that can serve a node app.

Deploy your own with these instructions.

Note: the default Dockerfile generated by flyctl will need some additions for elm-tooling and lamdera. You can use the one in this repo directly or as a reference.

Install Lamdera

Install Lamdera with these instructions.

elm-pages 3.0 uses the lamdera compiler, which is a superset of the Elm compiler with some extra functionality to automatically serialize Elm types to Bytes.

Debugging Lamdera Errors

Sometimes Lamdera will give compiler errors due to corrupted dependency cache. These messages will display a note at the bottom:

-- PROBLEM BUILDING DEPENDENCIES ---------------

...


Note: Sometimes `lamdera reset` can fix this problem by rebuilding caches, so
give that a try first.

Be sure to use lamdera reset to reset the caches for these cases. See more info about that in the Lamdera docs: https://dashboard.lamdera.app/docs/ides-and-tooling#problem-corrupt-caches

Docs

Check out the Package Docs. You can also use npx elm-pages docs from your project to view the documentation for the RouteBuilder module.

Running Scripts with elm-pages run

• npm install
• npx elm-pages run script/src/AddRoute.elm User.Id_ - now you can try out the generator! And you can tweak it, or even define new generator modules in the script/ folder! You can also shorten this command to npx elm-pages run AddRoute User.Id_ if you prefer.