Single — one Go binary

Single mode is the smallest possible Grit deploy: one Go binary with the React frontend embedded inside it. No separate frontend server, no reverse proxy juggling — drop the binary on a VPS and run it.

The shape

$grit new my-app --single        # Next.js frontend embedded
$grit new my-app --single --vite # Vite + TanStack frontend embedded

You get ONE directory (not apps/). The Go code lives at the root; the React app lives in frontend/ and gets compiled into the Go binary at build time via go:embed.

my-app/
├── main.go              # Go entry point
├── internal/            # Handlers, services, models
├── frontend/            # React source
│   ├── src/
│   └── dist/            # Built at build time, embedded into the binary
├── grit.json
└── go.mod

Why this is special

• One file deploy. scp myapp user@host: + ./myapp on the box. Done.
• No CORS. The frontend is served by the same Go process as the API — same origin, no preflight requests.
• No reverse proxy required. Optional, of course — Caddy / Traefik for TLS — but not architecturally needed.
• Smallest infra surface. Postgres + one binary. That's it.

When it shines

• Solo / indie products
• Internal tools deployed to a single VPS
• Self-hosted apps you ship to customers (one binary they can run)
• MVPs you want to iterate on without infra complexity

When to skip it

• You need a separate admin panel for non-engineers (no admin surface in single mode by default — use triple)
• The web and the API will be deployed independently (different regions, different scaling)
• You're scaling to multiple frontend regions but one backend

What's next

Single is the smallest. Next is its opposite — triple: the kitchen-sink SaaS shape with web + admin + API.