Cloudflare Vite plugin: local dev that matches production

# The Cloudflare Vite plugin

`@cloudflare/vite-plugin` runs your Worker inside the Cloudflare Workers runtime during local development, with local emulations of your bindings. That is the whole point: your dev loop executes against workerd, not Node, so runtime differences surface in dev instead of production.

## When to use it over wrangler dev

- Full-stack projects (Hono + React SPA, vinext/Next.js) where Vite already owns the build. The Hono and Next.js guides both scaffold on the Vite plugin.
- Any project where you want HMR plus Workers runtime fidelity in one dev server (`npm run dev` / `vite dev`).

`wrangler dev` remains fine for single-file Workers and quick iteration without a Vite setup.

## Environments with the plugin

With the Vite plugin you select the Cloudflare environment via the `CLOUDFLARE_ENV` environment variable, not `--env`. `CLOUDFLARE_ENV=production vite build` produces a flattened `wrangler.json` for the production environment: top-level plus inheritable keys merged, non-inheritable keys resolved to the environment's values.

## Checklist

- Keep `vite.config.ts` plugin config and `wrangler.jsonc` bindings in sync; the plugin reads the Wrangler file for binding emulation.
- Test binding-dependent code paths in the plugin dev server, not plain node, before concluding a binding is broken.
- In CI, make sure the build command sets `CLOUDFLARE_ENV` to the intended environment; the default top-level config is the dev environment in most setups.