Migrate from Service Workers to ES Modules

This guide will show you how to migrate your Workers from the Service Worker format to the ES modules format.

Advantages of migrating

There are several reasons to migrate your Workers to the ES modules format:

1. Durable Objects, D1, Workers AI, Vectorize and other bindings can only be used from Workers that use ES modules.
2. Your Worker will run faster. With service workers, bindings are exposed as globals. This means that for every request, the Workers runtime must create a new JavaScript execution context, which adds overhead and time. Workers written using ES modules can reuse the same execution context across multiple requests.
3. You can gradually deploy changes to your Worker when you use the ES modules format.
4. You can easily publish Workers using ES modules to npm, allowing you to import and reuse Workers within your codebase.

Migrate a Worker

The following example demonstrates a Worker that redirects all incoming requests to a URL with a 301 status code.

With the Service Worker syntax, the example Worker looks like:

async function handler(request) {
  const base = 'https://example.com';
  const statusCode = 301;

  const destination = new URL(request.url, base);
  return Response.redirect(destination.toString(), statusCode);
}

// Initialize Worker
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  event.respondWith(handler(event.request));
});

Workers using ES modules format replace the addEventListener syntax with an object definition, which must be the file’s default export (via export default). The previous example code becomes:

export default {
  fetch(request) {
    const base = "https://example.com";
    const statusCode = 301;

    const source = new URL(request.url);
    const destination = new URL(source.pathname, base);
    return Response.redirect(destination.toString(), statusCode);
  },
};

Bindings

Bindings allow your Workers to interact with resources on the Cloudflare developer platform.

Workers using ES modules format do not rely on any global bindings. However, Service Worker syntax accesses bindings on the global scope.

To understand bindings, refer the following TODO KV namespace binding example. To create a TODO KV namespace binding, you will:

1. Create a KV namespace named My Tasks and receive an ID that you will use in your binding.
2. Create a Worker.
3. Find your Worker’s wrangler.toml configuration file and add a KV namespace binding:

kv_namespaces = [
  { binding = "TODO", id = "<ID>" }
]

In the following sections, you will use your binding in Service Worker and ES modules format.

Reference KV from Durable Objects and Workers

To learn more about how to reference KV from Workers, refer to the KV bindings documentation.

Bindings in Service Worker format

In Service Worker syntax, your TODO KV namespace binding is defined in the global scope of your Worker. Your TODO KV namespace binding is available to use anywhere in your Worker application’s code.

addEventListener("fetch", async (event) => {
  return await getTodos()
});

async function getTodos() {
  // Get the value for the "to-do:123" key
  // NOTE: Relies on the TODO KV binding that maps to the "My Tasks" namespace.
  let value = await TODO.get("to-do:123");

  // Return the value, as is, for the Response
  event.respondWith(new Response(value));
}

Bindings in ES modules format

In ES modules format, bindings are only available inside the env parameter that is provided at the entry point to your Worker.

To access the TODO KV namespace binding in your Worker code, the env parameter must be passed from the fetch handler in your Worker to the getTodos function.

import { getTodos } from './todos'

export default {
  async fetch(request, env, ctx) {
    // Passing the env parameter so other functions
    // can reference the bindings available in the Workers application
    return await getTodos(env)
  },
};

The following code represents a getTodos function that calls the get function on the TODO KV binding.

async function getTodos(env) {
  // NOTE: Relies on the TODO KV binding which has been provided inside of
  // the env parameter of the `getTodos` function
  let value = await env.TODO.get("to-do:123");
  return new Response(value);
}

export { getTodos }

Environment variables

Environment variables are accessed differently in code written in ES modules format versus Service Worker format.

Review the following example environment variable configuration in wrangler.toml:

name = "my-worker-dev"

# Define top-level environment variables
# under the `[vars]` block using
# the `key = "value"` format
[vars]
API_ACCOUNT_ID = "<EXAMPLE-ACCOUNT-ID>"

Environment variables in Service Worker format

In Service Worker format, the API_ACCOUNT_ID is defined in the global scope of your Worker application. Your API_ACCOUNT_ID environment variable is available to use anywhere in your Worker application’s code.

addEventListener("fetch", async (event) => {
  console.log(API_ACCOUNT_ID) // Logs "<EXAMPLE-ACCOUNT-ID>"
  return new Response("Hello, world!")
})

Environment variables in ES modules format

In ES modules format, environment variables are only available inside the env parameter that is provided at the entrypoint to your Worker application.

export default {
  async fetch(request, env, ctx) {
    console.log(env.API_ACCOUNT_ID) // Logs "<EXAMPLE-ACCOUNT-ID>"
    return new Response("Hello, world!")
  },
};

Cron Triggers

To handle a Cron Trigger event in a Worker written with ES modules syntax, implement a scheduled() event handler, which is the equivalent of listening for a scheduled event in Service Worker syntax.

This example code:

addEventListener("scheduled", (event) => {
  // ...
});

Then becomes:

export default {
  async scheduled(event, env, ctx) {
    // ...
  },
};

Access event or context data

Workers often need access to data not in the request object. For example, sometimes Workers use waitUntil to delay execution. Workers using ES modules format can access waitUntil via the context parameter. Refer to ES modules parameters for more information.

This example code:

async function triggerEvent(event) {
  // Fetch some data
  console.log('cron processed', event.scheduledTime);
}

// Initialize Worker
addEventListener('scheduled', event => {
  event.waitUntil(triggerEvent(event));
});

Then becomes:

async function triggerEvent(event) {
  // Fetch some data
  console.log('cron processed', event.scheduledTime);
}

export default {
  async scheduled(event, env, ctx) {
    ctx.waitUntil(triggerEvent(event));
  },
};

Service Worker syntax

A Worker written in Service Worker syntax consists of two parts:

1. An event listener that listens for FetchEvents.
2. An event handler that returns a Response object which is passed to the event’s .respondWith() method.

When a request is received on one of Cloudflare’s global network servers for a URL matching a Worker, Cloudflare’s server passes the request to the Workers runtime. This dispatches a FetchEvent in the isolate where the Worker is running.

addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  event.respondWith(handleRequest(event.request));
});

async function handleRequest(request) {
  return new Response('Hello worker!', {
    headers: { 'content-type': 'text/plain' },
  });
}

Below is an example of the request response workflow:

1. An event listener for the FetchEvent tells the script to listen for any request coming to your Worker. The event handler is passed the event object, which includes event.request, a Request object which is a representation of the HTTP request that triggered the FetchEvent.

2. The call to .respondWith() lets the Workers runtime intercept the request in order to send back a custom response (in this example, the plain text 'Hello worker!').

   • The FetchEvent handler typically culminates in a call to the method .respondWith() with either a Response or Promise<Response> that determines the response.

   • The FetchEvent object also provides two other methods to handle unexpected exceptions and operations that may complete after a response is returned.

Learn more about the lifecycle methods of the fetch() handler.

Supported FetchEvent properties

• event.type string

  • The type of event. This will always return "fetch".

• event.request Request

  • The incoming HTTP request.

• event.respondWith(responseResponse|Promise) : void

  • Refer to respondWith.

• event.waitUntil(promisePromise) : void

  • Refer to waitUntil.

• event.passThroughOnException() : void

  • Refer to passThroughOnException.

respondWith

Intercepts the request and allows the Worker to send a custom response.

If a fetch event handler does not call respondWith, the runtime delivers the event to the next registered fetch event handler. In other words, while not recommended, this means it is possible to add multiple fetch event handlers within a Worker.

If no fetch event handler calls respondWith, then the runtime forwards the request to the origin as if the Worker did not. However, if there is no origin – or the Worker itself is your origin server, which is always true for *.workers.dev domains – then you must call respondWith for a valid response.

// Format: Service Worker
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  let { pathname } = new URL(event.request.url);

  // Allow "/ignore/*" URLs to hit origin
  if (pathname.startsWith('/ignore/')) return;

  // Otherwise, respond with something
  event.respondWith(handler(event));
});

waitUntil

The waitUntil command extends the lifetime of the "fetch" event. It accepts a Promise-based task which the Workers runtime will execute before the handler terminates but without blocking the response. For example, this is ideal for caching responses or handling logging.

With the Service Worker format, waitUntil is available within the event because it is a native FetchEvent property.

With the ES modules format, waitUntil is moved and available on the context parameter object.

// Format: Service Worker
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  event.respondWith(handler(event));
});

async function handler(event) {
  // Forward / Proxy original request
  let res = await fetch(event.request);

  // Add custom header(s)
  res = new Response(res.body, res);
  res.headers.set('x-foo', 'bar');

  // Cache the response
  // NOTE: Does NOT block / wait
  event.waitUntil(caches.default.put(event.request, res.clone()));

  // Done
  return res;
}

passThroughOnException

The passThroughOnException method prevents a runtime error response when the Worker throws an unhandled exception. Instead, the script will fail open, which will proxy the request to the origin server as though the Worker was never invoked.

To prevent JavaScript errors from causing entire requests to fail on uncaught exceptions, passThroughOnException() causes the Workers runtime to yield control to the origin server.

With the Service Worker format, passThroughOnException is added to the FetchEvent interface, making it available within the event.

With the ES modules format, passThroughOnException is available on the context parameter object.

// Format: Service Worker
addEventListener('fetch', event => {
  // Proxy to origin on unhandled/uncaught exceptions
  event.passThroughOnException();
  throw new Error('Oops');
});