Node.js loader with a Rollup-like interface.
Overview
unloader is a Node.js loader framework. Similar to Rollup as a general bundler, unloader provides customization capabilities through a subset of Rollup plugin API.
unloader is designed to be a general-purpose loader, which can be used to develop various loaders, such as Oxc loader, TypeScript loader, etc.
Install
Pre-requisites
Node.js v22.18 and above
Usage
CLI
node --import unloader/register ... # For ESM only, support both sync and async hooks node --require unloader/register-sync ... # For both ESM and CJS, only support sync hooks
Plugin Development
Hooks
| Hook | Description |
|---|---|
options |
Modify the options from userland. |
resolveId |
Resolve the module id. |
load |
Load the module. |
transform |
Transform the module. |
ESM and CJS
unloader supports both ESM and CJS, however, async hooks are only supported in ESM. To support both ESM and CJS, please make sure all hooks are synchronous, or use quansync.
Here is an example of using sync hooks and quansync:
Show code
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs' import { readFile } from '@quansync/fs' import { quansync } from 'quansync' import type { Plugin } from 'unloader' // sync usage const pluginSync: Plugin<true> = { name: 'my-plugin', resolveId(source, importer, options) { const result = this.resolve(`${source}.js`, importer, options) if (result) { console.log(result) return result } }, load(id) { const contents = readFileSync(id, 'utf8') console.log(contents) return contents }, } // quansync usage const pluginQuansync: Plugin = { name: 'my-plugin', resolveId: quansync(function* (source, importer, options) { const result = yield this.resolve(`${source}.js`, importer, options) if (result) { console.log(result) return result } }), load: quansync(function* (id) { const contents = yield readFile(id, 'utf8') console.log(contents) return contents }), }
Example
demo.ts
let context: PluginContext export function demoPlugin(): Plugin { return { name: 'demo-plugin', options(config) { config.sourcemap = true }, buildStart(_context) { context = _context context.log('hello world') }, async resolveId(source, importer, options) { if (source.startsWith('node:')) return // Feature: virtual module if (source === 'virtual-mod') { return '/virtual-mod' } // Feature: try resolve with different extensions const result = await this.resolve(`${source}.js`, importer, options) if (result) return result }, load(id) { if (id === '/virtual-mod') { return { code: 'export const count = 42' } } }, transform(code, id) { if (typeof code === 'string') { // Feature: source map const s = new MagicString(code) s.prepend('// header\n') const map = s.generateMap({ file: id, hires: 'boundary', includeContent: true, }) return { code: s.toString(), map, } } }, } }
See demo plugin and unloader.config.ts for more details.
unplugin
unloader is supported as a framework in unplugin.
// unloader.config.ts import Oxc from 'unplugin-oxc/unloader' export default { plugins: [ Oxc({ // options }), ], }
Credits
- Thanks to tsx!
Sponsors
License
MIT License © 2025-PRESENT Kevin Deng