SaadAAkash / simple-node-server

The simple but must needed scaffold you waited for your node backend

Simple Node Server

A simple enough node server scaffolding to get you started on your project immediately

Features

• Don't worry about the boilerplate anymore, jump right into writing your API resources

• Serve your frontend easily by providing the absolute path

• Have error handling and graceful shutdown support out of the box

• Structure your code in more maintainable and industry standard way

Running the Project

• npm install

• This starts the server in port 8282: npm start

• To run in different port: PORT=8000 npm start

Serving a Client/Frontend

• If your client app has following structure

client/
| - index.html
| - resources/ <-- or may be static/ or dist/

then this can easily be served using

CLIENT_DIR=<absolute path of your client app folder> npm start

• If your index.html file is at one place and folder with static files in another, then the following might be your option-

INDEX=<absolute path of index.html> STATIC_DIR=<absolute path of static folder> npm start

The Structure

index.js <-- entry point for node
server <-- root folder for all functionalities
| - core <-- all the core functionalities belong here 
  | - shutdownManager.js 
  | - bootstrapper.js
  | - ...
  
| - config <-- all server specific config resides here
  | - index.js
  
| - api <-- all the api resources belong here
  | - index.js <-- any new api resource is registered here
  
  | - <resource>
    | - route.js <-- specific routing for this resource e.g. /user/all, /user/auth etc.
    | - controller.js <-- controller for this resource, business and db access logics should
    reside here. Feel free to split up db access layer into a repository if you want
    | - repository.js <-- if you separate out db access codes from controller.js
    | - model.js <-- if this resource needs a model schema to be specified
    | - index.js <-- entry point for model, controller, repository and route for this resource
    | - test
      | - <type>.test.js <-- tests for this resource; type can be model, repository, controller
      etc. For each there should be one separate test file
      
| - testHelpers <-- test specific helpers, shared mocks, global vars should be here
  | - ...    

Exposing a new API Resource

• Create the resource folder under server/api (e.g. user)

• Create route.js, this will have routing definitions for all the endpoints under this resource (e.g. user/all, user/2/profile)

• Create controller.js; theoretically this is where you should put business and db access logic for your resource

• You can separate out your db access logic from controller and put them in a separate file called repository.js; controller will use it to get/manipulate db records

• Optionally you can have a model.js; which refers to the model required for this resource

• Create an index file and register all these under the index.js

module.exports = {
  route: ...
  controller: ...
  model: ...
  repository: ...
};

• Finally register your api to the base api routing at server/api/index.js

const yourResource = require('./yourResource');

...
router.use('/yourResource', yourResource.route);

module.exports = router;

• To know more, please take a look at the given sample api resource user

Other Important Commands

• To run tests: npm run test

• To check for lint errors: npm run lint