Express-Cloudant

A template for Node.js projects from your friends at Cloudant

Features

Built-in reverse proxy to your Cloudant account at /proxy, ending all CORS headaches.
Custom API in routes/api.js using PouchDB, exposing your database in a more controlled fashion.
Uses Grunt to manage static assets and design documents.
Manages design documents in the ddocs folder as JavaScript rather than raw JSON.

Install

Express-Cloudant depends on Grunt.js being installed globally. To install it, run this:

sudo npm install -g grunt-cli

Then, let's get the project and install its dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/cloudant-labs/express-cloudant
cd express-cloudant
npm install

You're good to go!

Configuration

Express-Cloudant uses a .env file to store credentials and the like. A sample one comes in the repo as env.example. Copy it and customize it by running this:

cp env.example .env

Now edit .env with your Cloudant credentials. It's ignored by git, so you won't accidentally commit it.

Running

Once you have Heroku's toolbelt installed, do this:

foreman run grunt && foreman start

This will...

Concatenate and minify static assets.
Push design docs stored in /ddocs to the appropriate databases.
Start the Node.js server.

Design Documents

Design documents live in the /ddocs folder in JS files named after the databases where they'll be pushed to. So, a file named logs.js will be pushed to a database named logs. To see an example design doc in the format Express-Cloudant understands, open up /ddocs/_users.js.

Launch on Heroku

Heroku uses a .env file to store environment variables like this:

USERNAME=derpherpburp
PASSWORD=friendshipismaniacal

To push those variables to your Heroku instance, do heroku config:push. Then:

heroku create [app]
git push heroku master

Now your app should be live. Easy, eh?

Get Involved!

Only together can we expand the universe of human potential! Fork the project on GitHub, open an issue, or submit a pull request. Everything helps :D