Defining Vite instance in a Nitro module using Nitro rollup configuration - Is This Approach Valid?

[Narixius]

Hi there. I'm currently exploring migrating ZRO, a simple React-based framework, to use Nitro. Right now, ZRO heavily depends on Vite, and even in the Nitro-powered version, Vite will still be required to process files like route components. The route files convention is similar to React Router (exporting loader, ErrorBoundary, etc...)

One thing I really like about Nitro is the auto import system. it significantly improves the developer experience. My goal is to enable Nitro auto imports inside Vite-processed files (Like calling useDatabase inside a loader function). To achieve that, I came up with the following approach:

export default defineNitroModule({
  name: "zro",
  async setup(nitro) {
    
    if (nitro.options.dev) {
    
      // register routes
      const router = globRouteFilesAndGenerateRouter(); // <- Finds the route files and generates the router
      nitro.options.devHandlers.push({
          route: '/**',
          handler: defineEventHandler(async (e) => {
              return renderRouter(router) // Handles request and streams React-based response
          })
      });
    
      nitro.hooks.hook("rollup:before", async (nitro, rollupOptions) => {
        const vite = await createServer({
          appType: "custom",
          server: { middlewareMode: true },
          optimizeDeps: {
            include: ["react", "react-dom"],
          },
          ssr: {
            external: ["react", "react-dom"],
            noExternal: ["nitropack"],
          },
          plugins: rollupOptions.plugins as VitePlugin[], // Enable Nitro auto imports in Vite
        });
        globalThis.__viteDevServer = vite;
        nitro.hooks.hook("close", () => vite.close());
      });
})

This setup allows me to access the Vite dev server via globalThis.__viteDevServer when generating the router and handling requests.

Question:
Defining routes inside a Nitro plugin (instead of a module) feels like a cleaner and more appropriate place to handle routing logic. I’m facing a challenge: creating the Vite dev server requires access to rollupOptions.plugins, which seems to be only available inside the module context.

Is there a recommended way to share the Vite dev server instance between a Nitro module and a Nitro plugin?
Or alternatively, is there a way to create a Vite dev server inside a Nitro plugin while still being able to access rollupOptions.plugins from Nitro?

I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Thanks.