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Node API Server Starter Kit

This starter kit contains everything you'll need to create your very own Node-based API server, using Express JS and configured to serve JSON files for data.

[UPDATE]!! Check out the new improved version

If you're looking for a more up-to-date version of this API starter kit then please check out the new repo here. I've improved everything from the ground up using a newer version of Express, included TypeScript and even used some fancy Node path aliases for your typing pleasure 😄.

Why an API server that serves JSON files?

Driven, as always, by the need to solve a problem I had on how to create a dummy API server that could return various bits of data in a realistic fashion (thus, removing the need to hard code everything), I went down the path of creating a dual project: one for the main React app I was using, with an attached API server using Express JS (i.e. this project).

Using the API server

I'll run over the basics here to get you up and running, but I wrote an accompanying article on this very tool that is much more comprehensive and covers many more use cases. You can read the full Node-based API server article on my website.

Getting started

First things first, you'll need to fork or clone this repository, and run the install command of your choosing (preferrably Yarn):

yarn install

// or

npm install

And that's really about it (see, I said it was simple!). To fire up the server and have it do stuff, you'll need to start it with the familiar command:

yarn start

// or

npm start

Accessing the server and returning data

The server should be running by now, and you can visit http://localhost:3001 to see it in action.

By default, it doesn't return a great deal, but if you visit http://localhost:3001/users -- which will automatically issue a GET request to our running API server -- you'll see a simple JSON object populated with some dummy user data.

Expanding the server

This starter kit is really designed as a kick off point for your own API adventures. If you would like to extend the functionality for your own purposes then you need to do these three things:

  1. Add a new JSON file with your relevant data to the main data entry point for the project, ./data
  2. Add a route file that will access this data into ./routes/[your route file].js -- hint: use the ./routes/users.js as a starting point
  3. Add your new route file into the main routes file located at ./routes/routes.js