Suggestion: global addContextProps hook

I have a need for global data that is available to all pages. I am aware that this is possible within the server entrypoint of the application, however that is not a perfect solution in all cases for the following reasons:

• The server file entrypoint is not a module context, so does not have access to env variables via import.meta.env. One could maybe run dotenv.config to get around this, but it feels inconsistent and hacky to be accessing env vars in two different ways
• Since the server entrypoint is not processed by Vite, it complains when attempting to import files using ES module syntax. This can lead to inconsistencies, confusion around which files can / are supposed to be used where.
• Data populated in the server entrypoint is not available in prerender hooks. This means any logic used here to populate the initial contextProps needs to be replicated in prerender hooks.

I am proposing the addition of API that would allow for global additions to context props covering all of these areas. I don’t have a specific API in mind yet, just opening the discussion as I see a need here.

[brillout]

One cosmetic imperfection with that solution: if you use initializeContextProps at the server integration point, then you’ll have to write it with CJS.

You’re right, we should dig deeper into enabling the server code to be processed by Vite. In the meantime, nodemon + CJS + a env.js is the way to go. Not pretty, but works.

// env.js

const env = {}

if( typeof window !== 'undefined' ){
  window.env = env
} else {
  // Node.js
  global.env = env
}

import './env' // for page code
require('./env') // for server code

env.someGlobalVariable = 'I am available to everyone';

[brillout]

Closing in favor of https://github.com/brillout/vite-plugin-ssr/issues/164