Express_Server_Template

An Express Server to use as a reusable template when creating a new application.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Project Structure
• Getting Started
• Usage

Overview

This project is a template of an Express Server. The purpose of it is to have a ready-to-use server when creating a new application. The server has the basic configuration and can/should be improved and built upon to add new features, packages and security.

In the main repository, the app directory should contain the components of the server, for example each route of the API. Each component should be divided in three more files:

• api: The api file contains the middleware for the component api, and handles HTTP/HTTPS requests for each function of the component.
• controller: The controller file defines the functions called inside the api.js file. This file has the purpose of destructuring the HTTP requests and calling the helper functions (in the helpers foler) to make a certain action.
• data-access: The data-access file defines the functions that will talk to the database. The connection should be opened in a dedicated file inside the helpers folder.

The helpers folder should contain the helper function of each component of the app. Inside this folder we should open the connection with the database.

The certs folder should contain the SSL certificates, if someone uses HTTPS instead of HTTP.

The public folder should contain the static files of the app, for example the React build.

Then there are the two main files that build the server:

• app.js: Contains the instance of the express application and the configuration of the middleware.
• server.js: Defines the HTTP/HTTPS server and starts it.

Project Structure

• app

  • component
    • component.api.js: Handles routing for the specific component.
    • component.controller.js: Calls functions associated with routes, handles request/response logic.
    • component.data-access.js: Defines functions for database operations.
  • api.js: Middleware for the API, aggregates all component APIs.

• certs: (for SSL certificates, assuming you might use HTTPS)

• helpers

  • component
    • component.helper.js: Contains the logic for component functions.
  • db-connection.js: Manages the database connection.

• public: (static files for the frontend)

• app.js: Express application instance with middleware setup.

• server.js: Creates an HTTP/HTTPS server and starts it.

Getting Started

The following command forks the repository in your own machine, downloads all the dependencies and starts the server.

git clone https://github.com/thomasravetto/Express_Server_Template.git
cd Express_Server_Template
npm install
npm start

Usage

This server should be used as a template to build larger application, it contains basic security and loggin packages such as cors, dotenv and morgan. To improve security, consider adding additional packages such as bcrypt for encryption, helmet to set HTTP response headers, and some cookies module.