node-express-boilerplate gives the developer a clean slate to start with while bundling enough useful features so as to remove all those redundant tasks that can derail a project before it even really gets started.

So what does node-express-boilerplate do

First of all, it is very easy to understand, allowing you to start using it right away. There is minimal need to dig around in files just to get a good idea of how things work. And if you don't like how the boiler plate is set up, just fork it and change it according to your own personal preferences.

Features include:

• Bundling socket.io and integrating with the express session store so data can be shared
• Providing premade hooks to authenticate users via facebook/twitter/github
• An assetmanager that concatenates/mangles/compresses your CSS/JS assets to be as small and fast to deliver as possible, as well as cache busting using MD5 hashes
• Auto updates of the browser (inline/refresh) as soon as CSS/JS/template-files are changed in order to remove all those annoying “save, tab, refresh” repetitions
• Notifications to your computer/mobile phone on certain user actions
• Sane defaults in regards to productions/development environments
• Logs errors to Airbrakeapp.com in order to track any errors users are encountering
• Auto matching of urls to templates without having to define a specific route (such as, visiting /file-name/ tries to serve file-name.ejs and fallbacks to index.ejs - this is helpful for quick static info pages)

Install on dev machine

• git clone https://github.com/mape/node-express-boilerplate myproject
• cd myproject
• npm install
• cp siteConfig.sample.js siteConfig.js
• mate siteConfig.js # update config for your use case
• nodemon server.js

Install on no.de

• First on node machine

  • ssh node@yourname.no.de
  • pkgin update; pkgin install redis
  • svccfg import /opt/local/share/smf/manifest/redis.xml
  • svcadm enable redis

• Then on local machine

  • git clone https://github.com/mape/node-express-boilerplate myproject
  • cd myproject
  • cp siteConfig.sample.js siteConfig.js
  • edit siteConfig.js settings
  • scp siteConfig.js node@yourname.no.de:~
  • git remote add joyent node@yourname.no.de:repo
  • git push joyent master
  • open http://yourname.no.de