⚪ Node API Boilerplate

Overview

A modern nodejs API boilerplate, built on top of Express + MongoDB.

See API Docs for functionality.

Live Examples:

• health check
• user detail

Motivation

Node API Boilerplate provides a starting point for creating a backend web service with nodejs, utilizing modern javascript tools and standards.

Usage with web server

This server is designed to be used as an API backend for a web or mobile service, and expects to be consumed by another process.

This decoupled approach ( as opposed to a monolithic approach where an API and web server live on the same process ) makes both the web and api service easier to organize, and provides a more scalable and performent architecture.

See universal-web-boilerplate to create universal, code split web apps.

Updates

5/21/2018 - Updated all npm dependencies to latest version. Update to webpack 4.

Featuring

Webpack to compile modern javascript in a node environment

• async / await to simplify async control flow and error handling
• import / export to enable javsascript modules

Jest for a fast and pleasant testing experience

• API integration tests run in parallel, each test connecting to a separate database instance.
• Code coverage and watch mode supported by jest out of the box

ESLint based on eslint-config-airbnb for fine grained control of code syntax and quality

• Configured for a nodejs environment
• IDE integration highly recommended

Prerequisites

• nodejs, latest LTS - https://nodejs.org/en/
• Yarn - https://yarnpkg.com/en/

Setup

Download the repo and install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/dtonys/node-api-boilerplate && cd node-api-boilerplate

yarn

Download MongoDB and run a local instance on the default port (27017)

https://treehouse.github.io/installation-guides/mac/mongo-mac.html

Create a .env file with values below, in project's root

NOTE: Substitute your own values as needed

API_PORT=3020
ENCRYPTION_SECRET=<SECRET_CODE>

MONGODB_DATABASE_NAME=auth_app
MONGODB_CONNECTION_URL=mongodb://localhost

Start the server in development mode

npm run dev

Build and run the server in production mode

npm run build

npm run start

Run API integration tests

npm run test

Run ESLint

npm run lint-js

API

A modern API backend, with access to RESTful resources, authentication, and permissions.

CRUD

Method	Url	Params	Notes
POST	/api/users	email, password_hash, roles	Create a new user
PATCH	/api/users/:id	email, password_hash, roles	Update user
GET	/api/users/:id		Get user
GET	/api/users		Get list of users
DELETE	/api/users/:id		Delete a user

Auth

Method	Url	Params	Notes
POST	/api/signup	email, password	Signup a user and log them in
POST	/api/login	email, password	Log a user in
GET	/api/logout		Log a user out
GET	/api/session		Get current session info

Protected

Method	Url	Params	Notes
GET	/api/member/users		Get list of users, logged-in only
GET	/api/admin/users		Get list of users, admin role only

External references

This boilerplate was created with inspiration from the following resources:

• backpack - https://github.com/jaredpalmer/backpack
• survivejs - https://github.com/survivejs-demos/webpack-demo
• react-redux-universal-hot-example - https://github.com/erikras/react-redux-universal-hot-example