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Backroad

Backroad lets you build React UIs without writing React. You write a Node.js script that declares a UI tree by calling methods on a br proxy:

import { run } from '@backroad/backroad';

run((br) => {
  br.write({ body: '# Hello, world' });
  if (br.button({ label: 'Click me' })) {
    console.log('clicked!');
  }
});

Backroad bundles a pre-built React frontend inside the server package. When the browser connects, the framework streams your declared tree over a WebSocket and the React renderer paints it. User interactions (button clicks, input changes, form submits) flow back to your script as state updates that trigger a re-run — same mental model as Streamlit, but TypeScript-native.

Why this exists​

  • Stop writing the same glue twice. Server state → API → React component → fetch hook → render. Backroad collapses all of it into one server script.
  • TypeScript end-to-end. The br proxy is fully typed; the components it renders are too.
  • Batteries included. Markdown, charts, forms, file upload, chat, theme switching, optional auth — all in @backroad/backroad.
  • Single deployable. One Node process serves the API and the React app.

What it's good for​

  • Internal tools / dashboards where the iteration cost of "spin up a CRUD page" matters more than pixel-perfect design control.
  • LLM apps that need an interactive front-end but live mostly in Python / Node-side orchestration.
  • Prototypes you'd otherwise build in Streamlit but want to keep in the TypeScript ecosystem.

What it's not​

  • Not for design-driven SaaS marketing sites. Use Next.js / Astro for that.
  • Not for static documentation. (This docs site uses Docusaurus.)
  • Not yet for high-cardinality multi-user apps — every connected user runs the script on its own session.

Next​

→ Getting started to install and run your first app.