PointyAPI

"Stop writing endpoints"

Typescript RESTful Server Architecture

Created and maintained by Stateless Studio

Introduction

PointyAPI is a library for quickly creating robust API servers.

ORM (TypeORM) Create models which automatically create and maintain your database
Validation (Class Validator) Use Typescript decorators to automatically validate fields
Authentication (JWT) JWT and request.user make authorization a breeze
Authorization Use Guards, CanRead(), and CanWrite() fields to ensure the user can read/write specific fields

Models

Models are created as Typescript classes. Here's an example class for a basic user:

@Entity()
class User extends BaseUser
{
	// User ID
	@PrimaryGeneratedColumn() // Primary column
	@IsInt() // Validation - Value must be integer
	@BodyguardKey() // Authentication - User must match this to be considered "self"
	@AnyoneCanRead() // Authorization - Anyone is allowed to read this field
	public id: number = undefined;

	// Username
	@Column({ unique: true }) // Database column - Usernames are unique
	@IsAlphanumeric() // Validation - must be alphanumeric
	@Length(4, 16) // Validation - must be between 4-16 characters
	@AnyoneCanRead() // Authentication - Anyone has read privelege to this member
	@OnlySelfCanWrite() // Authorization - Only self can write this member
	public username: string = undefined;

	// Password
	@Column() // Database column
	@OnlySelfCanWrite() // Authentication - Only self can write this member
	// No read key - nobody can read this field
	public password: string = undefined;

	/**
	 * hashPassword
	 */
	public hashPassword() {
		if (this.password) {
			this.password = hashSync(this.password, 12);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Hash the user's password before post
	 */
	public async beforePost(request: Request, response: Response) {
		this.hashPassword();

		return true;
	}

	/**
	 * Hash the user's password on update
	 */
	public async beforePatch(request: Request, response: Response) {
		this.hashPassword();

		return true;
	}
}

You can check out more sample models in examples/, or read more about them in the Models documentation.

Routes

Routes are Express routes which chain together PointyAPI middleware functions. Here's an example User router:

const router: Router = Router();

/**
 * Load model into PointyAPI
 */
async function loader(request, response, next) {
	if (await setModel(request, response, User)) {
		next();
	}
}

// POST - Load model, filter members, and save
router.post('/', loader, postFilter, postEndpoint);

// GET - Load model, filter members, and send
router.get('/', loader, getFilter, getEndpoint);

// PATCH - Load model, check if user owns, filter members, and save
router.patch(`/:id`, loader, onlySelf, patchFilter, patchEndpoint);

// DELETE - Load model, check if user owns, and delete
router.delete(`/:id`, loader, onlySelf, deleteEndpoint);

export const userRouter: Router = router;

Getting Started

Prerequisites

NodeJS
Database (Postgres Recommended)
HTTP Testing Client (Postman, cUrl, etc)
TS-Node
npm i -g ts-node

Install

Create a folder for your project, and run these commands:

cd my-project
npm init -y
npm i pointyapi

Create project

Create a source directory, src

Inside src/, create a file index.ts

// src/index.ts

import { pointy } from 'pointyapi';
import { basicCors, loadUser } from 'pointyapi/middleware';
const ROOT_PATH = require('app-root-path').toString();

// Routes
// TODO: We will import routes here

// Setup
pointy.before = async (app) => {
	// CORS
	app.use(basicCors);

	// Load user
	app.use(loadUser);

	// Routes
	// TODO: We will set our routes here

	// Database
	await pointy.db
		.setEntities(
			[
				/* TODO: We will set our models here */
				ExampleUser
			]
		)
		.connect(ROOT_PATH)
		.catch((error) => pointy.error(error));
};

// Start the server!
pointy.start();

Create a user route

By default, PointyAPI will use ExampleUser as the user model. Let's create a route for this model, so that we can access this model through our API:

Create a folder for routes, src/routes/
Create a new router file, src/routes/user.ts
Copy & paste router code:

// src/routes/user.ts

import { Router } from 'express';
import { setModel } from 'pointyapi';
import { ExampleUser } from 'pointyapi/models';
import { postFilter, getFilter, patchFilter } from 'pointyapi/filters';
import { onlySelf } from 'pointyapi/guards';
import {
	getEndpoint,
	postEndpoint,
	patchEndpoint,
	deleteEndpoint
} from 'pointyapi/endpoints';

const router: Router = Router();

// Set the route model to ExampleUser
async function loader(request, response, next) {
	if (await setModel(request, response, ExampleUser)) {
		next();
	}
}

// Route endpoints
router.get('/', loader, getFilter, getEndpoint);
router.post('/', loader, postFilter, postEndpoint);
router.patch(`/:id`, loader, onlySelf, patchFilter, patchEndpoint);
router.delete(`/:id`, loader, onlySelf, deleteEndpoint);

export const userRouter: Router = router;

Import user route into server

Open src/index.ts up again, and let's import our new User route.

import { ExampleUser } from 'pointyapi/models'; // Add import to our user model

...
// Routes
// TODO: We will import routes here
import { userRouter } from './routes/user'; // Add import to our user route

...

// Routes
// TODO: We will set our routes here
app.use('/api/v1/user', userRouter); // Add our user route to the app

// Database
await pointy.db
	.setEntities(
		[
			/* TODO: We will set our models here */
			ExampleUser // Add our BaseModel model to the database
		]
	)

...

Setup package.json

Add a start script to package.json:
```
"scripts": {
	"start": "ts-node src/index.ts"
}
```

Setup database

Create a database, create a local.config.json file in the root folder of your app, and replace the values:

{
	"type": "postgres",
	"host": "localhost",
	"port": 5432,
	"user": "MY_DATABASE_USERNAME",
	"password": "MY_DATABASE_PASSWORD",
	"database": "MY_DATABASE_NAME"
}

Start & Test

Our server is ready to run:
```
npm start
```
Open Postman, and send a GET request for all users. You'll see the result as an empty array, as there are no users yet:

Create a user:

We'll send a POST request to /api/v1/user, with the JSON body of our new user

Let's get all users again:

You can see that now a get request for all users produces an array of our one user.

Authentication

So we can get and post users, but what if we try to delete or update a user? Let's try it:

So the server responded with 401 Unauthorized, and a body of "not self". What gives?

Open at our user router (/src/routes/user.ts). Look at our DELETE route:

router.delete(`/:id`, loader, onlySelf, deleteEndpoint);

Notice onlySelf - that means only the user can access this route. We're not logged in yet, so we're certainly not "self"

Create another router file, src/routes/auth.ts. This will be our authentication route so that we can log-in.

// src/routes/auth.ts

import { Router } from 'express';
import { loginEndpoint, logoutEndpoint } from 'pointyapi/endpoints';
import { ExampleUser } from 'pointyapi/models';
import { setModel } from 'pointyapi';

const router: Router = Router();

// Set our route model & activate auth route
async function loader(request, response, next) {
	if (await setModel(request, response, ExampleUser, true)) {
		next();
	}
}

// Router endpoints
router.post('/', loader, loginEndpoint);
router.delete('/', loader, logoutEndpoint);

export const authRouter: Router = router;

And import this into our index.ts:

...
// Routes
// TODO: We will import routes here
import { userRouter } from './routes/user';
import { authRouter } from './routes/auth'; // Add import to our auth route

...

// Routes
// TODO: We will set our routes here
app.use('/api/v1/user', userRouter);
app.use('/api/v1/auth', authRouter); // Add our user route to the app

// Database
await pointy.db
	.setEntities(
		[
			/* TODO: We will set our models here */
			ExampleUser
		]
	)

...

Restart the server (ctrl+c to stop the server)

We can login with Postman:

We received a "token" back (yours will be different):

"token": "ZXlKaGJHY2lPaUpJVXpJMU5pSXNJblI1Y0NJNklrcFhWQ0o5LmV5SnBaQ0k2TVN3aWFXRjBJam94TlRVeE1qa3dOREkxTENKbGVIQWlPakUxTlRFek1EUTRNalY5Lk40UWNJV1hPYWVzWW9KOWh4VGx1X182dnhNVndpbkFXNGhRY2JWNkRKSUE="

We can now use that token to delete our user:

Notice that now we get a 204 No Content (which means deleted successfully!).

What about the refreshToken? You may notice you got two tokens back: token and refreshToken.

The token is short-lived - it only lasts 15 minutes or so. The refreshToken is long-living - it lasts about a week.

You can use the refreshToken to issue a new accessToken when it expires.

Production

To launch in production mode, please make sure the following variables are set (environment variables/.env)

SITE_TITLE - Set the site title
ALLOW_ORIGIN - Set your client URL to add the client to the CORS policy
JWT_KEY - Set your token key to make JWT cryptographically secure
JWT_TTL - Set your token time-to-live (seconds). Default is 15 minutes
JWT_REFRESH_TTL - Set your refresh token time-to-live (seconds). Default is 7 days.

UUID vs Auto-Incremented IDs

It is a security risk to use auto-incremented IDs, and you should instead use UUID for all ID columns.

To switch to using UUIDs:

Install the pgcrypto extension
Tell TypeORM to use pgcrypto by placing the line uuidExtension: 'pgcrypto' in orm-cli.js
Change all PrimaryGeneratedColumn() to PrimaryGeneratedColumn('uuid')
Change all public id: number members to public id: string
Make sure you remove IsInt() from all ID fields, if it exists
Ensure your front-end and anywhere you may access the ID is expecting a string

Example:

	// User ID
	@PrimaryGeneratedColumn('uuid') // Primary column
	@BodyguardKey() // Authentication - User must match this to be considered "self"
	@AnyoneCanRead() // Authorization - Anyone is allowed to read this field
	public id: string = undefined;

Continued Reading

PointyAPI

Read more about PointyAPI by cloning the repository and building the docs:

git clone https://github.com/StatelessStudio/pointyapi
cd pointyapi
npm install --ignore-scripts
npm i -g typedoc
npm run docs

Now open docs/index.html in your web browser.

You can also check out the examples in test/examples and even check out the test specs in test/specs

TypeORM

Read more about TypeORM: https://github.com/typeorm/typeorm

Class Validator

Read more about Class Validator: https://github.com/typestack/class-validator

Express

Read more about Express: https://www.express.com/

Securing your Server

Read the security checklist: https://github.com/shieldfy/API-Security-Checklist

dmg-aimmerman/pointyapi

PointyAPI

Introduction

Models

Routes

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Install

Create project

UUID vs Auto-Incremented IDs

Continued Reading

PointyAPI

TypeORM

Class Validator

Express

Securing your Server