theekshanawj / express-server-boilerplate

Skeleton Express Web server application. Boilerplate code is written for you, so you can start coding fast.

express-server-boilerplate

Skeleton Express Web server application. Boilerplate code is written for you, so you can start coding fast.

• You can use ES6 syntax

Required

• Node
• Yarn

Reference implementation

Code in this repo has a reference implementation for a web-service to get information about internet's most favourite animal cat. https://alexwohlbruck.github.io/cat-facts/ provides set of APIs to get facts about animals, this will be the service consumed by this reference app.

How to run the app

• Clone/Download this repo and navigate to app root directory through a terminal
• Run yarn to download required dependencies
• Run yarn start. (You should see App started at port 5000 in your terminal) ^$
• Application will start on http://localhost:5000
• Open your favourite browser and navigate to http://localhost:5000/api/docs
• Play with GET /cats/facts/ API end-point

^$ .env defines PORT=5000

How to use this boilerplate code

Reference implementation serves as a guide to an implementation of a Express web server via this boilerplate code. Follow the guide to get started with implementing a Express app quickly.

• Define controllers/routes in your application in the controllers directory

  For easy reference name the file which contains router definitions for someroute as someroute.js

• Define any route specific middleware in the controllers/router-middleware directory and bind them to the routes

  For easy reference define the route middleware as someroute-middleware.js

• In the main app (src/index.js) add route definitions using app.use

• Defines application level middleware in the middleware directory

  Middleware can bound before the controller definitions or after

• Define service layer implementations in the services directory

• Define downstream service calls, connectors in the external-apis directory

  A Rest-client has been already implemented using node-fetch, customize as required

• See Folder structure below to identify use cases of other directories, all of them are straightforward.

Note: Add, delete or modify current implementation to cater for requirements.

Folder structure

app
├── src
│       ├── constants # Directory that contains application-level constants
│       │   ├── index.js # Define application level constants 
│       │   ├── ... # Other constants 

│       ├── controllers # Directory that contains routes/APIs exposed by the web-service
│       │   ├── router-middleware # Directory that contains middleware for routes 
│       │   │   ├── cats-middleware.js # Middleware related to /cats routes
│       │   │   ├── ... # Other route specific middleware
│       │   ├── cats.js # APIs relevant to /cats are defined here
│       │   ├── ... # Other controller definitions


│       ├── external-apis # Directory that contains handlers for all downstream API requests
│       │       ├── client
│       │       │   └── index.js # REST Client class that exposes request to all http methods
│       │       ├── connectors # Directory that contains downstream API connectors/proxy
│       │       │   └── cat-fact.js # API connector for cat-fact service
│       │       │   └── ... # Other API connectors
│       │       └── cat-fact-service.js # Expose APIs of cat-fact service
│       │       └── ... # Expose other downstream APIs


│       ├── middleware # Direcotory that contains application-level middleware 
│       │       ├── request-validator.js # Validate requests 
│       │       ├── ... # Other middleware definitions

│       ├── resources # Directory that contains application resources
│       │       ├── swagger-config.js # Swagger definitions
│       │       ├── ... # Other resources

│       ├── services # Directory that contains service definitions for controllers
│       │       ├── cats.js # Service layer /cats controller
│       │       ├── ... # Other service definitions

│       ├── tests # Directory that contains application tests
│       │       ├── utils 
│       │       │   └── index.tests.js # tests for utils
│       │       ├── validators 
│       │       │   └── index.tests.js # tests for validators
│       │       ├── ... # Other directories for tests
│       │       ├── index.tests.js # Main app tests

│       ├── utils # Directory that contains application-level utilities 
│       │       ├── await-to.js # promise resolver
│       │       ├── ... # Other utils

│       ├── validator # Directory that contains application-level validations
│       │       ├── request-header.js # Request header validator 
│       │       ├── ... # Other validator 

│       ├── index.js # Main app

├── bootstrap # Directory that contains bootstrap scripts to start the application depending on the NODE_ENV

├── .env # Application ENVs for development

├── ... # Other configs such as .babelrc, jest.config.js, ... etc

├── package.json # Dependencies 

Scripts in package.json

• yarn: Download dependencies
• yarn start: Start the App in development mode. nodemon is integrated
• yarn build: Build the App; generate a dist folder with built code
• yarn prod:start: Start the App in production mode, yarn build is a prerequisite for this
• yarn clean: Remove the dist folder
• yarn test: Run tests

TODO

• Unit tests
• Deployment scripts