index97 Project Kickoff

Technically, the project kicked off in the 22nd week of September 2024, but the ideas and desire have been building since 2009.

I don't want a framework that replaces my thinking. I want one that supports it. Over the years I've noticed most modern frameworks make it hard to answer simple questions: what code runs, in what order, with what inputs, and why?

Too much hidden machinery. Too many conventions dressed up as magic. And a cognitive cost that grows faster than the benefits.

index97 starts from a simpler premise: stay close to the platform, keep concepts honest, and let developers do small things that compose into big things. No lock-in. No opaque lifecycles. No clever tricks that compromise clarity.

Origins: 2009–2024

The desire for this approach goes back to 2009. I was building systems where correctness and clarity mattered more than novelty - integrations, content negotiation, boundary APIs, and UI layers that weren't allowed to break on Friday nights. Every time a framework traded explicitness for magic, it made incident response and maintenance harder.

Across jobs and side projects, I kept sketching the same patterns: explicit routing, clear rendering steps, and the ability to see what's happening - not guess. Those sketches turned into utilities. The utilities turned into conventions. In September 2024, they finally turned into a project with a name.

Goals

• Bun-native: built on Bun's fast file I/O, built-in Markdown rendering, and native HTTP server
• File-based routing with no config: drop a file in pages/, get a route - the extension determines how it's handled
• Server-side rendering first: plain .html, templated .phtml, handler-backed .js, or content .md - pick what fits
• Zero configuration: createServer({ pagesDir: './pages' }) is the entire setup
• Transparent behavior you can read and understand in an afternoon

Principles

• Minimize abstraction between your code and the platform
• Prefer explicit data flow over hidden lifecycles
• Make failure modes easy to see and recover from
• Adopt incrementally - use only what you need
• Optimize for clarity, not cleverness

What's Already Working

• Extension-driven routing: .html serves directly, .phtml renders with handler data, .js exports named HTTP method functions (GET, POST, DELETE…), .md renders from Markdown
• Dynamic routes: bracket syntax ([slug].js) maps to URL parameters with no extra config
• Layout system: _layout.html wraps pages by directory proximity; _layout.js supplies shared data (session, nav) to every page beneath it
• Template engine: {{name}}, {{{raw}}}, {{#if}}, {{#each}}, <include>, and named slots via <template data-slot="…">
• Form method rewriting: PUT, PATCH, DELETE forms work without JavaScript
• HMR in development: edit any file, the browser updates instantly
• Static site generation: bunx index97 build renders all routes to dist/

Github Repo: index97