ts-express-quickstart

A quickstart template for building Node.js applications using Express and TypeScript. This template includes Prettier for code formatting, Jest for unit testing, and environment configuration.

Features

TypeScript: For strong typing and better code maintenance.
Express: Minimal and flexible web framework for Node.js.
Prettier: For consistent code formatting.
Jest: Testing framework for JavaScript with TypeScript support.
Supertest: For testing HTTP endpoints.
CORS: Configurable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing.
Helmet: Security middleware for HTTP headers.
Morgan: HTTP request logger middleware.
dotenv: For environment variables management.

Prerequisites

Node.js (version 18 or higher)
npm (version 8 or higher)

Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/alphajoop/ts-express-quickstart.git

cd ts-express-quickstart

Install the dependencies:
```
npm install
```

npm Scripts

npm start: Starts the server in development mode with ts-node.
npm run build: Compiles the TypeScript code and copies static files to the dist folder.
npm run serve: Starts the server in production mode from the dist folder.
npm run lint: Runs ESLint to analyze the code.
npm run format: Runs Prettier to format the code.
npm test: Runs tests with Jest.
npm run test:watch: Runs tests in watch mode.

Project Structure

ts-express-quickstart/
├── dist/
├── node_modules/
├── public/
│   ├── assets/
│   │   ├── css/
│   │   └── images/
│   └── index.html
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts
├── tests/
│   ├── app.test.ts
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── .prettierrc
├── .prettierignore
├── jest.config.js
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── .eslintrc.json

Configuration

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory with the following content:

# Port configuration
PORT=3000

# Allowed origins for CORS
ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://localhost:3000,http://example.com

# Example database configuration (if needed in the future)
# DB_HOST=localhost
# DB_PORT=5432
# DB_USER=user
# DB_PASSWORD=password
# DB_NAME=database

For reference, a .env.example file is included in the repository.

TypeScript

The TypeScript configuration is located in the tsconfig.json file. You can modify it according to your needs.

ESLint

The ESLint configuration is located in the .eslintrc.json file. You can adjust it to adhere to your coding conventions.

Prettier

The Prettier configuration is located in the .prettierrc file. Ensure that Prettier formats the code according to your preferences.

Jest

The Jest configuration is located in the jest.config.js file. This file configures Jest to use ts-jest and includes code coverage settings.

Example Test

An example test is located in the tests/app.test.ts file. This test uses supertest to test an endpoint of the Express application.

import request from 'supertest';
import express, { Request, Response } from 'express';
import path from 'path';

let server: any;

const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'public')));

app.get('/', (req: Request, res: Response) => {
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'public', 'index.html'));
});

describe('GET /', () => {
  beforeAll((done) => {
    server = app.listen(port, () => {
      console.log(`Server is running at http://localhost:${port}`);
      done();
    });
  });

  afterAll((done) => {
    server.close(done);
  });

  it('should return 200 and the welcome page', async () => {
    const res = await request(app).get('/');
    expect(res.status).toBe(200);
    expect(res.header['content-type']).toBe('text/html; charset=UTF-8');
  });
});

Deployment

To deploy your application, compile the TypeScript code and use the serve script to start the server in production mode:

npm run build
npm run serve

Contribution

Contributions are welcome! Please submit an issue or a pull request on GitHub.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.