I've reduced my code to the simplest express-js app I could make: var express = require("express"), app = express.createServer(); app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles')); app.listen(3001); My directory look like this: static_file.js /styles default.css Yet when I access http://localhost:3001/styles/default.css I get the following error: Cannot GET / styles / default.css I'm using express 2.