Elysia with Drizzle and Better Auth

Use this stack when the API should be a separate Elysia service on Bun, with sign-in, typed procedures, and PostgreSQL access owned by the server.

npm create better-fullstack@latest my-elysia-api -- \  --ecosystem typescript \  --frontend tanstack-router \  --backend elysia \  --runtime bun \  --database postgres \  --orm drizzle \  --auth better-auth \  --api orpc \  --css-framework tailwind \  --ui-library shadcn-ui

What this creates

• An Elysia server in apps/server that mounts Better Auth at /api/auth/*, oRPC at /rpc, and an OpenAPI reference at /api-reference.
• A TanStack Router app in apps/web with sign-in and sign-up forms, a user menu, and a protected dashboard.
• Drizzle on PostgreSQL through node-postgres, with the Better Auth tables and a task table.
• Better Auth with email and password sign-in, using the Drizzle adapter.
• Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui components in the web app.
• A Turborepo workspace and a reproducible bts.jsonc stack configuration.

Generated shape

my-elysia-api/
  bts.jsonc
  turbo.json
  apps/
    server/
      .env
      src/index.ts
    web/
      .env
      src/
        lib/auth-client.ts
        utils/orpc.ts
        routes/
          index.tsx
          login.tsx
          dashboard.tsx
  packages/
    api/src/
      context.ts
      index.ts
      routers/index.ts
    auth/src/index.ts
    db/
      drizzle.config.ts
      src/
        schema/
          auth.ts
          task.ts
        tasks.ts
    env/src/
      server.ts
      web.ts

apps/server/src/index.ts is the only Elysia file. It applies CORS for CORS_ORIGIN with credentials, passes /api/auth/* requests to auth.handler, and hands /rpc and /api-reference requests to oRPC handlers built from the router in packages/api. The oRPC context reads the Better Auth session from the request headers.

Routes

The server listens on port 3000. The web app runs on Vite's port 5173 and calls the server through VITE_SERVER_URL.

Environment

packages/env/src/server.ts validates the server variables with Zod at startup, so a missing or short secret fails early.

Run it locally

Install Bun first: the server's dev script runs bun run --hot src/index.ts. Point DATABASE_URL at a PostgreSQL database, then install dependencies, push the Drizzle schema, and start both apps through Turborepo:

npm installnpm run db:pushnpm run dev

npm run dev:server and npm run dev:web start one app at a time. Open http://localhost:5173/login to create an account, then visit /dashboard, which calls privateData.

db:push applies the schema directly. For tracked migrations, use npm run db:generate and npm run db:migrate; Drizzle Kit writes them to packages/db/src/migrations.

Add task procedures

The generator writes task queries in packages/db/src/tasks.ts, scoped to a user ID, but the oRPC router does not expose them yet. Add a tasks entry to appRouter in packages/api/src/routers/index.ts, next to healthCheck and privateData:

tasks: {
  list: protectedProcedure.handler(({ context }) => listTasks(context.session.user.id)),
  create: protectedProcedure
    .input(z.object({ title: z.string().trim().min(1) }))
    .handler(({ context, input }) => createTask(context.session.user.id, input.title)),
},

Import listTasks and createTask from @my-elysia-api/db/tasks and z from zod; the API package already depends on both. protectedProcedure rejects requests without a session, so every task query runs for the signed-in user only. The web app can then call orpc.tasks.list.queryOptions() with TanStack Query.

Compatibility notes

• --runtime bun is the runtime for this Elysia server. The generated scripts call bun directly for dev, start, and compile.
• oRPC is one choice here. The CLI also accepts --api trpc with Elysia and a React frontend.
• Better Auth sets cookies with sameSite: "none" and secure: true in packages/auth/src/index.ts, because the web app and the API run on different origins.

Deployment notes

Build the server with npm run build (tsdown writes apps/server/dist) and start it with bun run dist/index.mjs, or produce a single binary with the server's compile script. Set DATABASE_URL, BETTER_AUTH_SECRET, BETTER_AUTH_URL, and CORS_ORIGIN in the server environment. BETTER_AUTH_URL must be the public API origin and CORS_ORIGIN the exact web origin. Build the web app with VITE_SERVER_URL pointing at the deployed API, since Vite inlines it at build time.

Troubleshooting

Comparison notes

Choose Elysia when the team wants a Bun-first server with Elysia's plugin model. Compare Hono with Better Auth and Drizzle for a server that also runs on Node and Workers, or Fastify with Prisma and React for a Node server with Prisma.

Next steps

• Open the Stack Builder with Elysia selected.
• Read the Hono, Express, Fastify, and Elysia comparison.
• Review the CLI create reference.