Building a RESTful Todo API with Rust, Axum, and Diesel

Hey fellow developers! 👋 Today, I'm excited to share my journey building a robust Todo API using Rust's powerful ecosystem. This project showcases how to create a production-ready REST API with modern tools and best practices.

🦀 Why Rust?

Rust's safety guarantees, performance, and growing ecosystem make it an excellent choice for building reliable web services. Combined with Axum for routing and Diesel for ORM, we get a powerful foundation for our API.

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Rust
• Axum (Web framework)
• Diesel (ORM)
• PostgreSQL
• Docker

✨ Key Features

• Complete CRUD operations
• RESTful endpoints
• Database integration
• Docker support
• Scalable architecture

🚀 Getting Started

Setting up the project is straightforward:

# Clone and setup
git clone <your-repo>
cd todo

# Setup environment
cp .env.example .env

# Run migrations
diesel migration run

# Start the server
cargo run

📡 API Endpoints

POST /tasks   - Create a new task
GET /tasks    - List all tasks
GET /tasks/1  - Get a specific task
POST /tasks/1 - Update a task
DELETE /tasks/1 - Delete a task

🏗️ Project Architecture

The project follows a clean architecture pattern:

• Routes layer (API endpoints)
• Service layer (Business logic)
• Repository layer (Database operations)
• Models (Data structures)

💡 Implementation Highlights

Here's a glimpse of how we handle task creation:

#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct CreateTask {
    title: String,
    description: Option<String>,
}

async fn create_task(
    Json(payload): Json<CreateTask>,
    State(db): State<Pool<Postgres>>,
) -> Result<Json<Task>, StatusCode> {
    // Implementation details
}

🔄 Future Roadmap

We have exciting plans for the future:

1. Authentication & Authorization

• JWT implementation
• Role-based access

• OAuth2 support

  1. Enhanced Task Management

• Categories/Tags

• Priority levels

• Due dates

• Attachments

  1. Infrastructure

• Docker containerization

• Kubernetes deployment

• Monitoring with Prometheus

• Grafana dashboards

  1. Security

• Input validation

• SQL injection prevention

• HTTPS enforcement

• Rate limiting

  1. Frontend Development

• React.js client

• Mobile app with React Native

🔍 Learning Outcomes

Building this API taught me several valuable lessons:

1. Rust's powerful type system for API design
2. Structured error handling
3. Database integration patterns
4. API security best practices

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Whether it's:

• Bug reports
• Feature requests
• Pull requests
• Documentation improvements

📚 Resources

• Rust Book
• Axum Documentation
• Diesel Documentation

🔗 Links

• GitHub Repository

💭 Conclusion

Building a Todo API in Rust has been an exciting journey. The language's safety features and performance characteristics make it an excellent choice for web services. What features would you like to see added to this API? Let me know in the comments below! 👇