Fastify, Prisma, Zod & Swagger

Azzam Faraj — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 18:45:31 +0000

Fastify Prisma Boilerplate — A Productive API Starter

As someone who frequently spins up backend projects, I got tired of repeating the same setup. So I built a boilerplate that helps me get started faster with less boilerplate and more actual work.

This project combines Fastify, Prisma, Zod, and TypeScript into a lightweight, type-safe, and efficient REST API starter — with auto-generated routes, a CLI, and built-in validation.

👉 GitHub Repo

Features

⚡ Fastify for high-performance APIs
🐘 Prisma for type-safe DB access (PostgreSQL)
✅ Zod for schema validation and typing
🔒 End-to-end type safety with fastify-type-provider-zod
📝 Swagger auto-docs via @fastify/swagger
🛠 CLI to scaffold routes
♻️ Auto-registration of route files
🌐 .env support via dotenv

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/AZZIE2000/fastify-prisma-boilerplate my-api
cd my-api
npm install
cp .env.example .env     # Set DATABASE_URL
npx prisma migrate dev   # Apply DB schema
npm run dev              # Start server

API: http://localhost:8080
Docs: http://localhost:8080/docs

CLI: Generate Routes Automatically

The project includes a built-in CLI that creates new route files for you, based on what type of endpoints you want.

Usage

npm run route <name> <crud combo>

Example

npm run route product crud

This will generate src/routes/product.ts with the following endpoints:

Letter	Endpoint
`c`	`POST /api/product`
`r`	`GET /api/product` + `GET /:id`
`u`	`PATCH /:id`
`d`	`DELETE /:id`

You can customize which APIs to include. For example:

npm run route product cd

Will generate only the create and delete routes. This helps you avoid unused code and stay focused.

Auto-Registration of Routes

Any file you place in src/routes is automatically registered by the server.
The filename becomes the API path prefix. For example:

src/routes/user.ts → /api/user

You don’t need to import or register anything manually. The server handles it for you.

Type Safety & Validation

Each route uses Zod for schema validation. When combined with fastify-type-provider-zod, your schemas automatically become your TypeScript types.

This means:

Requests are validated at runtime
Your handlers get fully typed request.body, request.params, etc.
No need to manually define TypeScript interfaces for every route

Project Structure

.
├── prisma/             # Prisma schema
├── src/
│   ├── cli/            # Route generator logic
│   ├── plugins/        # Fastify plugins (e.g. db)
│   ├── routes/         # API endpoints
│   ├── utils/          # Shared utilities
│   └── index.ts        # Server entry

Scripts

npm run dev – Start dev server
npm run build – Build TypeScript
npm run start – Start compiled server
npm run route <name> <crud> – Generate route file

This boilerplate helps reduce setup time and lets you focus on building features — with structure, type safety, and simplicity built in.

👉 https://github.com/AZZIE2000/fastify-prisma-boilerplate

DEV Community: Azzam Faraj