Zen Router

An opinionated HTTP router with typed path params, built-in body validation, and a clean auth model.

Zen Router is an opinionated API router built by Liveblocks, where it has been powering billions of requests per month. It’s designed for Cloudflare Workers, Bun, Node.js, and other modern JavaScript runtimes.

npm install @liveblocks/zenrouter

Quick example

import { ZenRouter } from "@liveblocks/zenrouter";
import { z } from "zod";

const zen = new ZenRouter({
  authorize: async ({ req }) => {
    const token = req.headers.get("Authorization");
    const currentUser = await db.getUserByToken(token);
    if (!currentUser) return false;
    return { currentUser };
  },
});

// Get a specific post
zen.route(
  "GET /api/posts/<postId>",

  async ({ p, auth }) => {
    const post = await db.getPost(auth.currentUser.id, p.postId);
    return { id: post.id, title: post.title };
  }
);

// Create a new post for the current user
zen.route(
  "POST /api/posts",

  z.object({ title: z.string() }),

  async ({ auth, body }) => {
    const post = await db.createPost({
      title: body.title,
      authorId: auth.currentUser.id,
    });
    return { id: post.id, title: post.title };
  }
);

export default zen;

Features

Type-safe everywhere. Your handler receives { p, q, body }, all fully typed.
Body validation. With any Standard Schema compatible library.
Authorization. Mandatory by design, opt-out for public routes.
Composing routers. Isolate routers by auth strategy with ZenRelay.
CORS. Built-in, not bolted on.
Error handling. abort(404) from any handler, customizable error shapes.
Response helpers. json(), html(), textStream(), and more.
OpenTelemetry. Automatic span attributes for matched routes.
Runs anywhere. Cloudflare Workers, Bun, Node.js, and any runtime with Web Request/Response.

Quick example

Features

On this page