NestJS Up And Running with GraphQL, Swagger, Crud Helper and Passport/Auth Helper

This example shows how to implement structure and start a project with everything you need to create an API in Rest or GraphQL.

Getting started

1. Download example and install dependencies

Download this example:

https://github.com/uptoolkit/upback-nestjs/generate

Alternative: Clone the entire repo

Clone this repository:

git clone [email protected]:uptoolkit/upback-nestjs.git --depth=1

Install npm dependencies :

# Cd to the folder
cd upback-nestjs

npm install
#or
yarn install

#Then run :
npm run dev
#or
yarn dev

2. Create and seed the database

By default it use a Postgres SQL from the docker-compose. You should adapt the .env (you can start from the .env.example) and the schema.prisma to adapt it to your preferred database connection. Please be sure to have docker and docker-compose (https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/) on your computer before launching this command. You can have a quick check to docker-compose.yml to adapt it to your needs. There is pgadmin and appsmith (nocode app) included but absolutely not mandatory (you can remove it from the docker-compose.yml).

docker-compose up -d

Run the following command to create your Postgres SQL database file. This also creates the User and Post tables that are defined in prisma/schema.prisma:

npx prisma migrate dev --name init

When npx prisma migrate dev is executed against a newly created database, seeding is also triggered. The seed file in prisma/seed.ts will be executed and your database will be populated with the sample data.

2. Start the GraphQL server

Launch your GraphQL server with this command:

npm run dev

Navigate to http://localhost:3000/graphql in your browser to explore the API of your GraphQL server in a GraphQL Playground.

Using the GraphQL API

Follow the guide here :

https://docs.nestjs.com/graphql/resolvers

Using the Rest Api helper

Follow the guide here :

https://docs.nestjs.com/openapi/introduction

Use the CRUD helper

This boilerplate is shipped with the native crud helper from Nest and a Prisma Crud helper :

• https://docs.nestjs.com/recipes/crud-generator
• https://github.com/kepelrs/nestjs-prisma-crud

Auth Helper

This boilerplate is shipped with a simple Auth module helper using Passport and following this guide : https://docs.nestjs.com/security/authentication.

You are of course free to adapt but you will have a good go to auth module to start :-).

Switch to another database (e.g. PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB)

If you want to try this example with another database than SQLite, you can adjust the the database connection in prisma/schema.prisma by reconfiguring the datasource block.

Learn more about the different connection configurations in the docs.

Expand for an overview of example configurations with different databases

PostgreSQL

For PostgreSQL, the connection URL has the following structure:

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = "postgresql://USER:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT/DATABASE?schema=SCHEMA"
}

Here is an example connection string with a local PostgreSQL database:

datasource db {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = "postgresql://janedoe:mypassword@localhost:5432/notesapi?schema=public"
}

MySQL

For MySQL, the connection URL has the following structure:

datasource db {
  provider = "mysql"
  url      = "mysql://USER:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT/DATABASE"
}

Here is an example connection string with a local MySQL database:

datasource db {
  provider = "mysql"
  url      = "mysql://janedoe:mypassword@localhost:3306/notesapi"
}

Microsoft SQL Server

Here is an example connection string with a local Microsoft SQL Server database:

datasource db {
  provider = "sqlserver"
  url      = "sqlserver://localhost:1433;initial catalog=sample;user=sa;password=mypassword;"
}

MongoDB

Here is an example connection string with a local MongoDB database:

datasource db {
  provider = "mongodb"
  url      = "mongodb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST/DATABASE?authSource=admin&retryWrites=true&w=majority"
}

Because MongoDB is currently in Preview, you need to specify the previewFeatures on your generator block:

generator client {
  provider        = "prisma-client-js"
  previewFeatures = ["mongodb"]
}

Bonus : Nocode AppSmith interface

In the boilerplate, I have added a very simple and user friendly NoCode App Generator in the docker-compose.yml. It's of course not mandatory but might be useful to prototype something very quickly.

More infos : https://www.appsmith.com/

Next steps

• Learn more about NestJS : https://docs.nestjs.com/
• Have a look at the prisma/seed.ts
• Try to login and have a token access with : https://docs.nestjs.com/security/authentication
• Play with docker-compose up and AppSmith
• Participate and ask for new features on Github