Bare DocsUsing Bare on its own
Bare is a general-purpose JavaScript runtime you can adopt without Pear—embeddable, cross-platform, and modular. Here's when that makes sense and where the runtime-only path goes.
Most of these docs assume you're building on Pear, the peer-to-peer platform. But Bare—the runtime underneath Pear—is a general-purpose JavaScript runtime in its own right, and you can adopt it on its own, with no peer-to-peer or Pear machinery at all. This page is the entry point for that runtime-only path.
Pear is the platform on top of Bare. Everything here runs on Bare on its own. Install the pear CLI when you also want peer-to-peer app distribution, over-the-air updates, and one command to stage and release—the core you write for Bare moves across unchanged. Start on the Pear tab, or read How Pear and Bare fit together.
When to reach for Bare alone
Use standalone Bare when you want:
- A runtime to embed in a native app. Run JavaScript logic inside an iOS, Android, or React Native app on a background thread—the "run JavaScript everywhere" case—via Bare Kit worklets.
- A modular Node.js alternative. Bare is mobile-first and ships almost no standard library; you opt into only the
bare-*modules you actually use, keeping bundles small. - A single standalone executable. Compile a CLI, service, or daemon into one binary with no Node.js, Bare, or Pear install required on the user's machine.
If instead you're building a peer-to-peer app—storage, replication, swarms, over-the-air updates—start with Pear rather than Bare directly: Getting started and How Pear and Bare fit together show how Bare fits underneath it.
The runtime-only path
Understand it
- Inside Bare—what the runtime is, its lifecycle, and why its standard library is opt-in.
- One core, many platforms—embedding a Bare core in native apps via worklets and a typed RPC seam.
Look it up
- Bare runtime API—the
Bareglobal: process properties, lifecycle, addons, threads. - Bare CLI—run a script or start a REPL with the
barecommand. - Bare Kit—the Worklet and IPC API for iOS, Android, and React Native.
- Bare modules—the
bare-*standard library.
Do it
Where Bare and Pear meet
Even used on its own, Bare shares an ecosystem with Pear. The peer-to-peer building blocks are ordinary JavaScript modules that run on Bare, and tools like compact-encoding and hyperschema are used on both sides. So if a standalone Bare app later grows peer-to-peer features, the same core moves onto Pear unchanged—see How Pear and Bare fit together.