express API starter

A simple Node.js API server setup. Built with Express, MongoDB (mongoose) and Passport for authentication.

Usage

$ git clone https://github.com/robert52/express-api-starter.git
$ cd express-api-starter
$ npm install
$ cp config/environments/example.js config/environments/development.js
$ cp config/winston/environments/example.js config/winston/environments/development.js

Modify the environment specific configuration file accordingly.

Add the necessary transports for winston, also environment specific configuration is required.

To run the server us the following command, by default the server will run in development mode:

$ node server.js

Running tests

To run a test simple use the following command:

$ mocha tests/unit/password.js

Or you can use npm scripts to run all integration or unit tests.

$ npm run integration

Folder structure

app

The main application folder containing all the server files, based on MVC structure.

Note that models and routes are not mounted automatically, you need to wire them manually, to reduce unwanted logic getting into production, read below for more info.

• controllers: mostly will contain back-end business logic.
• models: this is where you store all Mongoose models. To include a model see config/models.js file.
• routes: Express routes will be found here. To include a route please see config/routes.js file.
• helpers: helper functions used in the whole application, mainly units that can be tested stand-alone.
• middlewares: mountable business logic on routes, connect style middleware.

config

The config folder contains files which configure different application parts. Also you can find some special folders:

• environments: environment specific configuration files.
• strategies: authentication strategies used by Passport.
• winston: contains the logging mechanism and transport configuration.

tests

The test folder stores the Mocha test suites.

• unit: contains only unit tests.
• integration: test suites that run on the whole application, or on modules that have dependencies.
• fixtures: data that can be loaded into MongoDB for testing or any other predefined test data.

License

MIT