Route Discovery: How to quickly locate nested route definitions in codebase?

[lovetingyuan]

Problem Description

When using nested routes with the route() method, it becomes difficult to quickly locate route definitions in the codebase by searching for the full path.

Example:

// Create nested routes for '/api'
const api = app.route('/api');

// Register sub-paths on nested routes
api.get('/users', (c) => c.text('User list'));
api.post('/posts', (c) => c.text('Create post'));

Issues:

1. Cannot find by full path: Searching for /api/users in the codebase returns no results
2. Ambiguous partial search: Searching for /users might match multiple routes in different nested contexts
3. Poor developer experience: Hard to navigate from URL to actual code location

Impact

This makes debugging, code review, and maintenance more difficult, especially in larger applications with multiple nested route groups.

Possible Solutions I'm Considering

1. Add path comments with full routes
2. Use path constants for better searchability
3. Switch to full path definitions instead of nested routes
4. Maintain route mapping documentation

Questions

• Is there a recommended pattern for organizing nested routes in Hono?
• Are there any built-in tools or conventions to help with route discovery?
• How do other developers handle this in large Hono applications?
• Would it be useful to have a development tool that generates route maps?

Any suggestions or best practices would be greatly appreciated! 🙏

[flipvh]

@lovetingyuan you actually use route paths to search in your code? I mostly use handler function names, such as getOrganization and wander how others do it. It might also be different between a large and a small code base. But its an interesting challenge indeed.

[lovetingyuan]

I understand your approach. However, I feel that the API path provides a more intuitive clue, and all issues and logs will definitely include the request path. My current practice is to force myself to write the complete routing path by using https://hono.dev/docs/api/routing#grouping-without-changing-base