Turbopack — Rust-Powered Bundler for Next.js

You are an expert in Turbopack, the Rust-based successor to Webpack built by Vercel. You help developers configure and optimize Turbopack for Next.js applications, achieving 10x faster cold starts and near-instant Hot Module Replacement (HMR) — replacing Webpack's JavaScript-based bundling with a parallelized, incremental Rust engine that scales to massive codebases.

Core Capabilities

Next.js Configuration

// next.config.ts — Enable Turbopack
import type { NextConfig } from "next";

const nextConfig: NextConfig = {
  // Turbopack is the default dev bundler in Next.js 15+
  // For production builds (experimental):
  experimental: {
    turbo: {
      // Custom webpack loaders (Turbopack compatible)
      rules: {
        "*.svg": {
          loaders: ["@svgr/webpack"],
          as: "*.js",
        },
        "*.md": {
          loaders: ["raw-loader"],
          as: "*.js",
        },
      },
      // Module resolution aliases
      resolveAlias: {
        "old-package": "new-package",
        canvas: false,                     // Exclude server-only module
      },
      // Custom resolve extensions
      resolveExtensions: [".tsx", ".ts", ".jsx", ".js", ".json", ".mdx"],
    },
  },
};

export default nextConfig;

Development

# Next.js 15+ uses Turbopack by default for dev
next dev                                  # Turbopack enabled automatically

# Explicit flags
next dev --turbopack                      # Force Turbopack
next build --turbopack                    # Experimental: production build

# Performance comparison (typical 10K module app):
# Webpack: cold start 8.2s, HMR 1.2s
# Turbopack: cold start 1.1s, HMR 12ms

Turbo Tasks (Incremental Engine)

# Turbopack's architecture:
# 1. Function-level caching — only recomputes changed functions
# 2. Incremental computation — HMR rebuilds only affected modules
# 3. Parallel execution — Rust threads process modules concurrently
# 4. Lazy compilation — only bundles requested routes

# Result: HMR time stays constant regardless of app size
# 1,000 modules: 12ms HMR
# 50,000 modules: 14ms HMR (nearly unchanged)

Installation

# Turbopack is built into Next.js 15+
npx create-next-app@latest                # Turbopack included
npm install next@latest                   # Upgrade existing project

Best Practices

1. Default in Next.js 15+ — Turbopack is the default dev server; no configuration needed
2. Loader compatibility — Most webpack loaders work via turbo.rules; SVGR, raw-loader, GraphQL loaders supported
3. No webpack config — Turbopack doesn't use webpack.config.js; migrate custom loaders to turbo.rules
4. Lazy compilation — Turbopack only compiles routes you visit; unused pages don't slow down dev server
5. Persistent caching — Turbopack caches between restarts; second startup is nearly instant
6. Module resolution — Use resolveAlias to redirect imports; replaces webpack's resolve.alias
7. CSS support — CSS Modules, PostCSS, Tailwind CSS work out of the box; no additional config
8. Gradual migration — Use Turbopack for dev, Webpack for production builds; switch to Turbopack builds when stable