Minimal Lightweight starter kit for developing API Backend server based on Node.js, MySQL along with built-in support for Socket.io and Redis.

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├── /config/                    # This directory contains all configuration files
│   ├── /env/                   # Environment depending configs go here in respective files
│   ├── /routes/                # All api route declarations go here. 
│   ├── global.js               # Global configs go here
├── /lib/                       # Custom Library files go in this folder
│   ├── custom-response.js      # Makes Custom response definitions defined in src/responses available project wide
│   ├── knex.js                 # MySQL setup using knex
│   ├── redis.js                # Redis client setup
├── /node_modules/              # Npm module files are installed here
├── /public/                    # Any files that are needed to be made public directly should go here. Files will be available at [Your_Server_Url]/filepath
├── /src/                       # Node.js application source files
│   ├── /controllers/           # Controller definitions go here. Controller name should correspond to model name
│   ├── /models/                # Model definitions go here. Model name should ideally correspond to your MySQL table name for ease of readability
│   ├── /responses/             # Custom response definitions such as error/success
│   ├── /services/              # Utility functions
│   ├── /policies/              # Access policies are defined here
│   ├── /extras/                # Any extra files that you may require must go here
├── app.js                      # Main file with setup and configuration for Express and Socket.io server 
├── package.json                # List of project dependencies
└── .foreverignore              # ignore configs for forever in case the server is run through forever 

This project mainly depends on Express and Knex (for MySQL). Other dependencies such as for Redis and Socket.io can be commented in package.json if you do not need them.

Just clone the repo and open the project in any code editor such as Visual Studio/Webstorm. Run npm/yarn install to install the dependencies and then start your server using npm start:

git clone https://github.com/codeslayer1/node-api-starter-kit my-api-server
cd my-api-server
npm install
npm start

Once you run npm start, your server will start at http://localhost:1337. The sample api included with this project will be available at POST http://localhost:1337/v1/api-one. You can test out the api using either CURL or Postman.

All configurations related to MySQL/Redis/Socket.io are present in config/env/development.js(or production.js). Simply replace the configs with actual values corresponding to yout MySQL/Redis servers.

For using Socket.io server, you need to uncomment the relevant code in app.js.

The sample api code is present in src/models and src/controllers. Once you have went through the sample api code, you can remove the ModelOne.js and ModelControllerOne.js files and add your own files. You can also install useful packages like Async to better structure your apis.

For all other files, you can check out the directory structure and associated comments to know the use case for each file/folder. You will also find relevant comments in each file. It is suggested that you go through each file once to understand its relevance to the project.

The easiest way to deploy the server is by running npm start. If you need to use a cluster, you can install pm2 and deploy it using pm2 in cluster mode. You can read about pm2 here.

npm install pm2 -g
ENV=production PORT=1400 pm2 start app.js --name apis_prod -i 2 --log-date-format="YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm Z" 

You can deploy the server on any platform such as AWS or DigitalOcean.

Everyone is welcome to contribute. Please start by checking out the list of open issues. Will also appreciate any help in improving the Readme section.

node-api-starter-kit is released under the MIT license.