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