NodeJS API boilerplate

A boilerplate for Node.js API. This boilerplate gives the minimal structure of application 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. This boilerplate users Express with sequelize as ORM and MySQL/PostgreSQL as database.

Prerequisites

1. NodeJs
2. NPM
3. MySQL/PostgreSQL

Quick start

1. Clone the repository with git clone https://github.com/mangya/nodejs-rest-api.git <your_project_folder_name>
2. Change directory to your project folder cd <your_project_folder_name>
3. Install the dependencies with npm install
4. Create database in MySQL/PostgreSQL.
5. Update the your database name and credentials in the .env file.
6. Run the application with npm start (MySQL/PostgreSQL service should be up and running).
7. Access http://localhost:3000 and you're ready to go!

Project Structure

.
├── app/
│   ├── controllers/           # Route controllers (controller layer)
│   ├── middlewares/           # Middlewares
│   ├── models/                # Express database models (data layer)
├── config/
├── database/
│   ├── migrations/            # Database migrations
├── helpers/                   # Utility classes and functions
├── .env                       # API keys, passwords, and other sensitive information
├── routes/                    # Route definitions
├── tests/                     # Tests
├── index.js                   # Express application
└── package.json               # NPM Dependencies and scripts

Creating new models

If you need to add more models to the project just create a new file in /models/ and use them in the controllers.

npx sequelize-cli model:generate --underscored --name <modelName> --attributes column1:string,column2:string,column3:string

Running the migrations

npx sequelize-cli db:migrate

Creating new routes

If you need to add more routes to the project just create a new file in /routes/ and add it in /routes/index.js it will be loaded dynamically.

Creating new controllers

If you need to add more controllers to the project just create a new file in /controllers/ and use them in the routes.

Tests

Running Test Cases

npm test

You can set custom command for test at package.json file inside scripts property. You can also change timeout for each assertion with --timeout parameter of mocha command.

Creating new tests

If you need to add more test cases to the project just create a new file in /tests/ and run the command.

Packages used

• nodemon — tool that helps develop node.js based applications by automatically restarting the node application when file changes in the directory are detected.
• bcrypt — encryption library to hash a password
• body-parser — Node.js body parsing middleware. Parse incoming request bodies in a middleware before your handlers, available under the req.body property.
• dotenv — module to load environment variables from a .env file
• express — web application framework for node
• helmet — Help secure Express apps by setting HTTP response headers.
• http-status — Utility to interact with HTTP status codes.
• passport — authentication middleware for Node.js.
• pg — PostgreSQL client for Node.js. (You can remove this if using MySQL as database)
• pg-hstore — A node package for serializing and deserializing JSON data to hstore format (You can remove this if using MySQL as database)
• mysql2 — MySQL client for Node.js. (You can remove this if using PostgreSQL as database)
• sequelize — Sequelize is a promise-based Node.js ORM for Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite and Microsoft SQL Server.

Postman Collection

available in the repo

Contributing

This boilerplate is open to suggestions and contributions, documentation contributions are also welcome! 😊