Node API Boilerplate

Overview

This is a boilerplate application for building REST APIs in Node.js using ES6 and Express with Code Coverage and JWT Authentication. Helps you stay productive by following best practices. Follows Airbnb's Javascript style guide.

Heavily inspired from Egghead.io - How to Write an Open Source JavaScript Library.

Features

Feature	Summary
ES6 via Babel	ES6 support using Babel.
Authentication via JsonWebToken	Supports authentication using jsonwebtoken.
Code Linting	JavaScript code linting is done using ESLint - a pluggable linter tool for identifying and reporting on patterns in JavaScript. Uses ESLint with eslint-config-airbnb, which tries to follow the Airbnb JavaScript style guide.
Auto server restart	Restart the server using nodemon in real-time anytime an edit is made, with babel compilation and eslint.
ES6 Code Coverage via istanbul	Supports code coverage of ES6 code using istanbul and mocha. Code coverage reports are saved in `coverage/` directory post `yarn test` execution. Open `coverage/lcov-report/index.html` to view coverage report. `yarn test` also displays code coverage summary on console. Code coverage can also be enforced overall and per file as well, configured via .istanbul.yml
Debugging via debug	Instead of inserting and deleting console.log you can replace it with the debug function and just leave it there. You can then selectively debug portions of your code by setting DEBUG env variable. If DEBUG env variable is not set, nothing is displayed to the console.
Promisified Code via bluebird	We love promise, don't we ? All our code is promisified and even so our tests via supertest-as-promised.
API parameter validation via express-validation	Validate body, params, query, headers and cookies of a request (via middleware) and return a response with errors; if any of the configured validation rules fail. You won't anymore need to make your route handler dirty with such validations.
Pre-commit hooks	Runs lint and tests before any commit is made locally, making sure that only tested and quality code is committed
Secure app via helmet	Helmet helps secure Express apps by setting various HTTP headers.
Uses yarn over npm	Uses new released yarn package manager by facebook. You can read more about it here

CORS support via cors
Uses http-status to set http status code. It is recommended to use httpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR instead of directly using 500 when setting status code.
Has .editorconfig which helps developers define and maintain consistent coding styles between different editors and IDEs.

Getting Started

Clone the repo:

git clone git@github.com:kunalkapadia/express-mongoose-es6-rest-api.git
cd express-mongoose-es6-rest-api

Install yarn:

npm install -g yarn

Install dependencies:

yarn

Set environment (vars):

cp .env.example .env

Start server:

# Start server
yarn start

# Selectively set DEBUG env var to get logs
DEBUG=express-mongoose-es6-rest-api:* yarn start

Refer debug to know how to selectively turn on logs.

Tests:

# Run tests written in ES6 
yarn test

# Run test along with code coverage
yarn test:coverage

# Run tests on file change
yarn test:watch

# Run tests enforcing code coverage (configured via .istanbul.yml)
yarn test:check-coverage

Lint:

# Lint code with ESLint
yarn lint

# Run lint on any file change
yarn lint:watch

Other gulp tasks:

# Wipe out dist and coverage directory
gulp clean

# Default task: Wipes out dist and coverage directory. Compiles using babel.
gulp

Deployment

# compile to ES5
1. yarn build

# upload dist/ to your server
2. scp -rp dist/ user@dest:/path

# install production dependencies only
3. yarn --production

# Use any process manager to start your services
4. pm2 start dist/index.js

In production you need to make sure your server is always up so you should ideally use any of the process manager recommended here. We recommend pm2 as it has several useful features like it can be configured to auto-start your services if system is rebooted.

Logging

Universal logging library winston is used for logging. It has support for multiple transports. A transport is essentially a storage device for your logs. Each instance of a winston logger can have multiple transports configured at different levels. For example, one may want error logs to be stored in a persistent remote location (like a database), but all logs output to the console or a local file. We just log to the console for simplicity, you can configure more transports as per your requirement.

API logging

Logs detailed info about each api request to console during development.

Error logging

Logs stacktrace of error to console along with other details. You should ideally store all error messages persistently.

Code Coverage

Get code coverage summary on executing yarn test

yarn test also generates HTML code coverage report in coverage/ directory. Open lcov-report/index.html to view it.

Docker

Using Docker Compose for Development

# service restarts on file change
bash bin/development.sh

Building and running without Docker Compose

# To use this option you need to make sure mongodb is listening on port 27017

# Build docker 
docker build -t express-mongoose-es6-rest-api .

# Run docker
docker run -p 4040:4040 express-mongoose-es6-rest-api

A Boilerplate-only Option

If you would prefer not to use any of our tooling, delete the following files from the project: package.json, gulpfile.babel.js, .eslintrc and .travis.yml. You can now safely use the boilerplate with an alternative build-system or no build-system at all if you choose.

Docs and Recipes

Gulp recipes - the official Gulp recipes directory includes a comprehensive list of guides for different workflows you can add to your project.

topogigiovanni/node-api-boilerplate