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Introduction

Coral is a modern experimental fullstack meta-framework for React applications, currently in early experimental development. Built on top of well-established open source technologies like React, TanStack Router, and Vinxi, Coral aims to provide a clean, flexible, and extensible foundation for building production-grade applications, without locking developers into any specific hosting provider, platform, or deployment model.

Unlike many frameworks that prioritize convention over control or impose rigid architectural patterns, Coral emphasizes clarity, minimalism, and developer autonomy. It is designed to be lightweight, transparent, and progressively adaptable, suitable for both rapid prototyping and long-term evolution.

Motivation​

The modern JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem offers a wide range of tools for building fullstack applications. However, developers often face a choice between:

  • Frameworks that are heavily opinionated or tied to commercial platforms
  • Boilerplates that offer flexibility but little structure or scalability
  • Solutions that require deep internal knowledge to customize or extend

Coral was created to address the following needs:

  • A React-first fullstack framework that remains decoupled from any vendor infrastructure
  • A system that builds on proven tools without reinventing core primitives
  • An approach that values transparency and avoids unnecessary abstraction
  • A framework that can scale over time, without becoming increasingly opaque or inflexible

Coral: Current Feature Set (Pre-Alpha)​

Overview​

Coral is currently in pre-alpha and provides a focused, minimal set of core features aimed at enabling fullstack development without overwhelming complexity. These features form the foundation for future iterations and emphasize clarity, extensibility, and developer control.

Feature Highlights​

Static Asset Support​

Coral includes a conventional public/ directory that allows you to serve static files without additional setup. This makes it easy to deliver images, fonts, and other assets as part of your project.

Server Functions and API Routes​

You can define server-side logic in a centralized API handler (src/api.ts). Basic route matching and HTTP method handling are already built in, making it easy to get started with API endpoints or custom backend behavior.

File-Based Client Routing​

Coral uses TanStack Router for client-side routing. Routing follows filesystem conventions and supports scalable, nested routes with minimal configuration.

React-Only Rendering Pipeline​

All rendering in Coral uses standard React patterns. There are no custom JSX transforms or proprietary rendering layers. If you know React, you know how rendering works in Coral.

Philosophy and Design Principles​

Coral is guided by a few clear principles that shape how the framework works and evolves.

1. Freedom by Design​

Coral avoids prescribing a specific deployment model, rendering strategy, or hosting provider. You can deploy your application to any environment—whether Node.js, edge functions, or serverless runtimes. The framework is built to be infrastructure-agnostic, giving you full control over how and where you ship your code.

2. Familiar Foundations​

Rather than inventing new abstractions, Coral integrates widely adopted libraries that already solve important problems well. React, TanStack Router, and Vinxi are used in a modular and coherent way. This means you can rely on existing community knowledge and tooling without needing to learn a new ecosystem.

3. Simplicity Over Convention​

Coral provides useful defaults and consistent patterns, but avoids hardcoded conventions that are difficult to work around. The goal is to let developers inspect and understand what the framework is doing, without requiring deep knowledge of internal mechanics.

4. Practical Evolution​

Coral is still in active development and follows an iterative, feedback-driven roadmap. The focus is not on checking every feature box early, but on building a framework that is correct, composable, and easy to maintain. Future features will be added thoughtfully, prioritizing developer experience and long-term clarity.

Project Status​

Coral is currently in a pre-alpha stage. The framework is functional and usable for experimentation and internal tools, but it is not yet recommended for production applications. Breaking changes may occur frequently, and several major features are under active development.

The project as of now is maintained by a single developer and is evolving rapidly. Feedback, experimentation, and community involvement are welcomed as Coral matures toward a more stable release.

Roadmap (Planned Features)​

Planned improvements and upcoming capabilities which are under consideration include:

  • Server-side rendering (SSR) support
  • True Static site generation (SSG)
  • Environment variable support
  • File-based API route generation
  • Adapter architecture for api protocols (under consideration and will be looked into and added if devs need it)
  • Testing integration (unit (e2e is under consideration for later)) with automatic test file generation
  • Dedicated backend template for advanced use cases (e.g., Express, Hono) (under consideration)
  • Documentation site generated using Coral itself, once SSG is available (I'm using Docusaurus for now)
  • An ISR layer is under consideration for later.

These features are not yet complete, and timelines may vary depending on the development cycle and implementation complexity. Some of the aforementioned features may be reconsidered based on what the community needs.