NodeJS + Express WebAPI Project Template

Common Plugins

Runtime

Plugin Name	npm i --save	Description	Links
DotEnv	dotenv	Loads .env into process.env	NPM
ModuleAlias	module-alias	Register aliases of directories and custom module paths in Node	NPM
PathAlias	path-alias	Register aliases and resolves path from root of application	NPM
UUID	uuid	Generation of RFC4122 UUIDS	NPM
Winston	winston	Universal logging	NPM
MomentJS	moment	Date and time library	NPM | WebSite
MomentJS Timezone	moment-timezone	Timezone library	NPM | WebSite
CryptoJS	crypto-js	Crypto library	NPM
Object Mapper	object-mapper	JSON object mapper	NPM
Request	request	HTTP request library	NPM
Request Promise	request-promise	Promise add-on to Request	NPM
Joi	joi	JSON schema validator	NPM
Schema Object	schema-object	JSON schema definition	NPM
Loadash	loadash	Miscs JS library	NPM | WebSite
Split	split	String split library	NPM
ExpressJS	express	WebAPI library	NPM | WebSite
CORS	cors	Cross-origin resource sharing library	NPM
Morgan	morgan	ExpressJS logging facility	NPM
Cookie Parser	cookie-parser	Cookie parser	NPM
JWT	jsonwebtoken	JWT library	NPM
EJS	ejs	JS template library	NPM

Development

Plugin Name	npm i --savedev	Description	Links
Nodemon	nodemon	NodeJS - watch and auto-restart node app	NPM | WebSite
MochaJS	mocha	JS test framework	NPM | WebSite
Expect.JS	expect.js	Minimalistic BDD assertion toolkit based on should.js	NPM
SuperAgent	superagent	SuperAgent is a small progressive client-side and Node.js HTTP request library	NPM
Read Last Line	read-last-line	Read last line(s) of a file	NPM

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

Using Boilerplate

• Get MASTER archive https://github.com/azmizar/boilerplate-nodejsexpress-webapi/archive/master.zip
• Unzip to a new project folder
• If project folder is not yet set to a GIT repo
  • Go into the project folder using CMD, GIT BASH, or Powershell
  • git init to initialize GIT local repo
  • git add . to stage all files
  • git commit -m "Initialized from boilerplate" to commit all files
  • git remote add origin $remote_repo$ to set the PUSH and FETCH remote repo
  • git pull to get remote repo branch (will see error with tracking information)
  • git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master master to track current branch to remote
  • git push -f to force update remote repo
• If project folder is already a GIT repo, then just commit the changes

Standard Practices

• Comments
• File content structure
• Import variable name format
• Error messages service
• Error handling

Project Structure

• common contains shared scripts, modules, classes, services, etc for the entire app to use
• common-models contains shared models for entire app to use
• common-error-messages contains error message definitions for entire app
• common-examples contains simple examples
• config contains configuration files and services
• docs contains documentation
• logs is the default logs folder (can be modified in .ENV)
• middlewares contains shared Express middlewares
• public contains static files

App Modules

• Endpoints should be bundled as modules
• Take an example of API to manipulate file systems
  • 2 modules, paths and files to work on paths and files respectively
  • Folder name for app module is recommended to be prefix with app-
    • Ex: app-paths and app-files
• All module related files should be contained within the module folder
• Anything that need to be shared should be in common- folder or in common folder if it is shared for entire app