API Key Manager and Middleware for Hono 🔥

Secure, flexible API key middleware and manager for Hono. Works in Node, Cloudflare Workers, and edge runtimes. Batteries included adapters (Memory, KV, Redis) and a clean StorageAdapter interface for custom backends.

Features

• Zero dependencies - No external runtime dependencies
• Middleware-first: apiKeyMiddleware(manager, options?)
• Header (x-api-key) or query (?api_key=) auth
• Optional rate limiting (per-key or default)
• Type-safe context: access c.get('apiKey')
• Adapters: Memory, Cloudflare KV, Redis; easy to implement your own
• Tiny ESM/CJS builds, Typescript types included

Install

# npm
npm install hono-api-key

# yarn
yarn add hono-api-key

# pnpm
pnpm add hono-api-key

Quick Start (Node)

import { Hono } from 'hono';
import { apiKeyMiddleware, ApiKeyManager, MemoryAdapter } from 'hono-api-key';

const manager = new ApiKeyManager({ adapter: new MemoryAdapter() });
const created = await manager.createKey({ ownerId: 'owner-1', name: 'demo' });

const app = new Hono<{ Variables: { apiKey: Awaited<ReturnType<typeof manager.validateKey>> } }>();
app.use('*', apiKeyMiddleware(manager));
app.get('/secure', (c) => c.text(`hello ${c.get('apiKey')?.name}`));

// client: set header 'x-api-key: ' + created.key

Middleware

apiKeyMiddleware(
  manager: ApiKeyManager,
  options?: {
    headerName?: string // default: 'x-api-key'
    queryName?: string  // default: 'api_key'
    rateLimitBypass?: boolean
  }
)

• Throws HTTPException(401) for missing/invalid key
• Throws HTTPException(429) when rate limit exceeded
• Stores sanitized key on context: c.set('apiKey', keyInfo)

Helper for typing app Variables:

type ApiKeyInfo = Awaited<ReturnType<ApiKeyManager['validateKey']>>;
const app = new Hono<{ Variables: { apiKey: ApiKeyInfo } }>();

Manager API

• createKey({ ownerId, name, permissions?, rateLimit?, expiresAt?, metadata? })
• getKeys(ownerId, includeKey=false)
• getKeyById(keyId, ownerId?)
• updateKey(keyId, ownerId, updates)
• deleteKey(keyId, ownerId)
• validateKey(keyValue)
• checkRateLimit(keyId, override?)

Records use ISO strings, sanitized variants omit key.

Adapters

Built-in:

• MemoryAdapter – in-memory, great for tests/dev
• KvAdapter – Cloudflare Workers KV
• RedisAdapter – Redis client-agnostic using a minimal RedisClient interface

Implement your own by conforming to StorageAdapter in src/types.ts and pass it to ApiKeyManager.

Cloudflare KV (Workers)

import { Hono } from 'hono';
import { apiKeyMiddleware, ApiKeyManager, KvAdapter } from 'hono-api-key';

type Env = { KV: KVNamespace };
const app = new Hono<{
  Bindings: Env;
  Variables: { apiKey: Awaited<ReturnType<ApiKeyManager['validateKey']>>; manager: ApiKeyManager };
}>();

app.use('*', (c, next) => {
  const manager = new ApiKeyManager({ adapter: new KvAdapter(c.env.KV, 'apikey:') });
  c.set('manager', manager);
  return next();
});

app.use('/secure/*', (c, n) => apiKeyMiddleware(c.get('manager'))(c, n));

KV example is in examples/kv/ with Wrangler configs and routes.

Redis (Node or Workers with Upstash / ioredis)

import { Redis } from '@upstash/redis';
import { apiKeyMiddleware, ApiKeyManager, RedisAdapter } from 'hono-api-key';

const redis = new Redis({
  url: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL!,
  token: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN!,
});
const manager = new ApiKeyManager({ adapter: new RedisAdapter(redis, 'apikey:') });

Redis example is in examples/redis/ and supports Upstash or ioredis.

Examples

• examples/basic.ts – Node server with @hono/node-server
• examples/kv/ – Cloudflare Workers KV example (Wrangler)
• examples/redis/ – Redis adapter example (Node/Upstash)
• examples/custom-d1/ – Custom adapter with Cloudflare D1 using Drizzle
• examples/libsql/ – Custom adapter with LibSQL / Turso using Drizzle (thanks to @darkterminal)

Scripts:

# Node example
pnpm run examples:basic

# Cloudflare KV example
pnpm run examples:kv

# Redis example
pnpm run examples:redis

Contributing / Development

pnpm install
pnpm test           # Vitest
pnpm build          # tsup (ESM+CJS, dts)
pnpm format         # Prettier
pnpm changeset      # create a changeset

Author

Lafif Astahdziq (https://lafif.me)

License

MIT