Astra is a web server runtime for Lua (5.1-5.4), Luau and LuaJIT written in Rust with native support for Teal. The goal is to get as much performance as possible while writing the web server logic in Lua instead for faster iteration, fault-tolerance and no-build requirements. This project is internally used here at ArkForge and many others.

MSRV: 1.88+

Installation

You can either get the binaries at github releases or

Using cargo:

cargo install lua-astra

To install with differet Lua VM, e.g. Lua 5.4:

cargo install lua-astra --no-default-features --features lua54

Linux install script

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArkForgeLabs/Astra/refs/heads/main/linux_install.sh | bash

Windows install script

powershell -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArkForgeLabs/Astra/refs/heads/main/windows_install.ps1 | iex"

Example

-- Create a new server
local server = require("http").server.new()

-- Register a route
server:get("/", function()
    return "hello from default Astra instance!"
end)

-- Configure the server
server.port = 3000

-- Run the server
server:run()

You can also use the local variables within routes

local counter = 0
server:get("/count", function()
    counter = counter + 1
    -- and also can return JSON
    return { counter = counter }
end)

Requests and Responses and their configuration are provided when needed

server:get("/", function(request, response)
    -- set header code
    response:set_status_code(300)
    -- set headers
    response:set_header("header-key", "header-value")

    -- consume the request body
    print(request:body():text())

    return "Responding with Code 300 cuz why not"
end)

There are also utilities provided such as a PostgreSQL/SQLite, http client requests, lua extra utils, and async tasks.

-- spawn an async task that does not block the running thread
spawn_task(function ()
    -- HTTP Request to check your IP address
    local response = require("http").request("https://myip.wtf/json"):execute()
    pprint(response:status_code())
    pprint(response:remote_address())
    pprint(response:body():json())
end)

Community Projects

• Astra Trails - https://github.com/0riginaln0/astra-trails

If you have a project that uses or extends Astra, let us know about it by extending the list above or opening a new issue

Note

This project may have breaking changes in minor versions until v1.0. Afterwhich semver will be followed. Contributions are always welcome!