Browser-Agnostic Messaging

Target Audience: Advanced Goal: Route messages through typed clients and ports while keeping code browser-agnostic.

HexaJS standardizes communication across Background, Content, and UI contexts through client and port abstractions.

Core principles

• Never call chrome.* / browser.* directly in app classes.
• Use @hexajs-dev/ports and injected clients.
• Route request/response messages through background endpoints.
• Keep code platform-agnostic; CLI builds per target platform.

What you'll learn

• How clients route messages across context boundaries.
• How RuntimePort and other ports hide browser API differences.
• How to implement custom ports with platform switch logic.
• How background acts as the router between UI/content contexts.

Platform build behavior: Platform-aware ports use __HEXA_PLATFORM__ for tree-shaking. See Build Pipeline for details.

API reference

For exhaustive built-in ports documentation, see API Reference.