Lightning-Fast Edge Deployment with Cloudflare: Building Scalable Backends for Mobile Apps

Cloudflare is no longer just a CDN - it’s a global compute platform. With tools like D1, a distributed SQLite compatible database, and Workers that automatically scale and run near your users, it's perfectly suited for powering mobile backends.

Calljmp is built on top of Cloudflare, making it feel native to build and deploy cloud services right alongside your mobile app code.

In this post, we’ll walk through how to get started with Calljmp in just a few steps and show you how to develop and deploy your own cloud service - running globally on the edge.

Getting started with Calljmp

To integrate Calljmp into your React Native project, start with the CLI:

❯ calljmp setup
             __________________
____________ ___  /__  /_____(_)______ ___________
_  ___/  __ `/_  /__  /_____  /__  __ `__ \__  __ \
/ /__ / /_/ /_  / _  / ____  / _  / / / / /_  /_/ /
\___/ \__,_/ /_/  /_/  ___  /  /_/ /_/ /_/_  .___/
                       /___/              /_/

✔ Authorization requested.
Open the following URL to authorize CLI:
https://dash.calljmp.com/cli/...
✔ Authorized.
No projects found!
Creating new project...
✔ Project name · my-project
✔ Project description (optional) · my mobile app backend
✔ Project created.
✔ Service module directory · src/service
✔ Migrations directory · src/service/migrations
✔ Schema directory · src/service/schema
Synchronizing service bindings...
└── buckets
    ├── documents: documentsBucket
    └── media: mediaBucket
Generating service.ts
Generating service-types.d.ts

This command bootstraps your project and service module inside a mobile project. After a quick authorization, the CLI connects to your Calljmp dashboard, sets up directories for schema and migrations, and generates TypeScript bindings. You’ll now have a ready-to-edit src/service/main.ts and types for your cloud service logic.

Think of src/service as the home for your backend - co-located with your mobile code, versioned, and deployed globally via Cloudflare.

Your first cloud service

After running calljmp setup, your project will include a scaffolded service entrypoint that looks like this:

import { CloudService } from './service';

class AppCloudService extends CloudService {
  protected override onRequest(request: Request): Response | Promise<Response> {
    // TODO: Implement your service logic here
    // For example, you can use the database and secrets like this:
    // const result = await this.database.query('SELECT * FROM users');
    // const secretValue = this.secrets.someSecret;
    // return new Response(`Hello, ${this.variables.someVariable}!`);
    return new Response('Hello from the AppCloudService!');
  }
}

export default new AppCloudService();

This class-based approach gives you a clean and testable way to define server logic.

A quick breakdown

• CloudService: A base class provided by Calljmp to simplify request handling and provide typed access to your database, buckets, secrets, and variables.
• onRequest(): This method is called for every incoming request to your service. You can return a Response directly or use async logic as needed.
• this.database, this.buckets, this.secrets, and this.variables: Automatically injected helpers for querying D1 (SQLite database), R2 (storage), reading secrets, and accessing environment variables defined in your environment variables.

Managing environment variables and secrets

Calljmp makes it easy to work with environment variables, including encrypted secrets. These variables are defined in .env and .service.env files, and are automatically loaded based on your current environment (e.g., development, production).

Supported files

You can organize them per environment:

• .env
• .env.development
• .env.production
• .service.env
• .service.env.development
• .service.env.production

The CLI will detect the correct file automatically when you build or deploy.

# .env or .env.production
CALLJMP_SOME_TOKEN="not a secret token"
SECRET_CALLJMP_SECRET_ENCRYPTED_TOKEN="encrypted secret token"

• Variables prefixed with SECRET_ are encrypted and available in your service as regular variables (without the prefix):
  • CALLJMP_SECRET_ENCRYPTED_TOKEN → this.secrets.CALLJMP_SECRET_ENCRYPTED_TOKEN
• Variables without SECRET_ are available through this.variables:
  • CALLJMP_SOME_TOKEN → this.variables.CALLJMP_SOME_TOKEN

Calljmp encrypts and manages secrets so you don’t need to worry about leaking sensitive values into your frontend code or mobile apps.

Running your service locally

Once your service is set up, you can start developing and testing it locally using calljmp start. Here's what the output looks like:

❯ calljmp start
             __________________
____________ ___  /__  /_____(_)______ ___________
_  ___/  __ `/_  /__  /_____  /__  __ `__ \__  __ \
/ /__ / /_/ /_  / _  / ____  / _  / / / / /_  /_/ /
\___/ \__,_/ /_/  /_/  ___  /  /_/ /_/ /_/_  .___/
                       /___/              /_/

Generating service.ts
Generating service-types.d.ts
Variables:
  SOME_TOKEN: not a secret token
Secrets:
  ENCRYPTED_TOKEN: ********
Ready on http://0.0.0.0:8787
- http://127.0.0.1:8787
- http://192.168.86.22:8787

Key commands:

   c  - Stop server
   r  - Restart server
   b  - Synchronize service bindings

This starts a local Cloudflare - compatible server so you can test your service as if it were running in production.

Try It with curl

Your service responds to HTTP requests. The default example returns a simple message:

❯ curl http://127.0.0.1:8787

Hello from the AppCloudService!

Multi-device testing

Your service is also available on your LAN (e.g., http://192.168.X.X:8787), which means you can call it from your mobile device for real testing - no tunneling or proxying needed.

This lets you test and debug exactly how your mobile app will communicate with the backend - without leaving your dev environment.

Creating a simple POST endpoint with Hono

Now let’s add a real endpoint to your cloud service. We’ll use the Hono router to handle requests and return structured JSON.

Updated main.ts

import { Hono } from 'hono';
import { CloudService } from './service';

type App = {
  Bindings: {
    service: CloudService;
  }
};

const app = new Hono<App>();

app.post('/user/name', async c => {
  const { first, last } = await c.req.json();
  return c.json({ name: `${first} ${last}` });
});

class AppCloudService extends CloudService {
  override onRequest(request: Request, _env: unknown, ctx: ExecutionContext): Response | Promise<Response> {
    return app.fetch(request, { service: this }, ctx);
  }
}

export default new AppCloudService();

Test it with curl

❯ curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8787/user/name \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"first": "John", "last": "Doe"}'
{"name":"John Doe"}%

What you learned

• You can use Hono to structure routes like an Express app - on the edge.
• The Calljmp CloudService context is still available via c.env.service for accessing the database, buckets, secrets, and more.
• This sets the foundation for handling user input and building backend logic connected to your mobile app.

You can now expand this into more advanced routes - querying your SQLite database, uploading files to buckets, or handling auth.

Deploying to the edge

Once your service logic is ready, deploy it globally with a single command:

$ calljmp service deploy

Example output:

❯ calljmp service deploy
             __________________
____________ ___  /__  /_____(_)______ ___________
_  ___/  __ `/_  /__  /_____  /__  __ `__ \__  __ \
/ /__ / /_/ /_  / _  / ____  / _  / / / / /_  /_/ /
\___/ \__,_/ /_/  /_/  ___  /  /_/ /_/ /_/_  .___/
                       /___/              /_/

Secrets:
  ENCRYPTED_TOKEN: ********
Variables:
  SOME_TOKEN: not a secret token
✔ Build completed
✔ Deployment completed
Access your service at: https://api.calljmp.com/target/v1/service

Your cloud function is now live and running across Cloudflare’s global edge network.

Viewing your deployed service in the dashboard

Once deployed, you can view your service details, environment variables, and secrets directly from the Calljmp dashboard.

What you see

• Service URL: The public endpoint of your cloud service
• Service variables: Non-sensitive config values like SOME_TOKEN that are available via this.variables
• Service secrets: Sensitive encrypted values like ENCRYPTED_TOKEN that are accessed via this.secrets

Notes

• Regular variables update automatically on each deploy
• Secrets must be updated manually and persist until explicitly removed
• You can manage these by editing your .env or .service.env files and running calljmp service deploy again

Keeping secrets and variables separate ensures better security and clarity for your cloud service.

Authenticating requests to production

When your service is deployed, all production requests require authentication to ensure only your mobile app or tools with valid tokens can access it.

Getting an access token

Use the CLI to generate a temporary access token for testing:

$ calljmp service access

This will output a curl command with all the necessary headers and a valid bearer token:

curl https://api.calljmp.com/target/v1/service \
  --header "X-Calljmp-Platform: ios" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token-here>"

Testing a protected endpoint

❯ curl https://api.calljmp.com/target/v1/service/user/name \
  --header "X-Calljmp-Platform: ios" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token-here>"
  --header "Content-Type: application/json"
  -d '{"first": "John", "last": "Doe"}'
{"name":"John Doe"}%

Notes

• The X-Calljmp-Platform header identifies the platform (ios, android, etc.) - required.
• The Authorization header must include a valid JWT token issued via the CLI or from your mobile SDK.
• Tokens are scoped per user/device/session - mobile SDKs manage these automatically in real apps.

Use the CLI token only for testing or server-side scripts. In production, your mobile app should authenticate normally (e.g., email/password, OAuth, etc.) and get its token from the Calljmp auth system.

Wrapping up

In this post, we:

• Bootstrapped a mobile-friendly backend using calljmp setup
• Developed a simple POST endpoint using Hono
• Tested it locally and deployed it globally to Cloudflare’s edge network
• Secured the production endpoint with access tokens
• Explored environment variables and secrets via the Calljmp dashboard

All of this-with instant edge deployment, native mobile integration, and no infrastructure management.

Calljmp makes building and scaling cloud services for mobile apps feel as natural as writing frontend code.