Setup a Node/ExpressJS API Project in less than 10mins

Abdul-Samii Ajala — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 23:10:52 +0000

Create your project repository

Create a repo on Github for your new Node project. Give it a name &description.

Choose whether you want the repo to be private or public.
Add .gitignore and select Node

Upon creating your repository copy the ssh link of the project

Clone the repo

In your terminal, navigate to your project folder and run

git clone <repo_link>

this will clone the files from your Github repo to your laptop

cd into the newly cloned project and run

npm init

Answer all the questions accordingly, that should create a file named package.json for you.
In your terminal, install your dev dependencies; eslint, babel & nodemon

npm i -D eslint nodemon @babel/node @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/plugin-transform-async-to-generator @babel/plugin-transform-runtime @babel/preset-env eslint-config-prettier

set project configurations

create babel.config.json

{
  "presets": ["@babel/preset-env"],
  "plugins": ["@babel/plugin-transform-runtime"]
}

In your project directory, create src/index.js file and create a simple server in it like so

import express from 'express'
const app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello world')
})

app.listen(9090, () => {
    console.log('Server is running on port 9090')
})

In your package.json, let's add some scripts

{
    ...
    "script": {
      "dev": "nodemon --exec babel-node src",
      "start": "node dist/",
      "lint": "./node_modules/.bin/eslint . --fix",
      "build": "npm run lint && babel src -d dist"
    },
    ...
}

Install express as a dependency

npm i express

Be sure to initialize your eslint like so;

npx eslint --init

choose To check syntax, find problems, and enforce code style
select JavaScript modules (import/export)
under which framework, select none of these
where does your code run? Check Node only
How would you like to define a style for your project? select Use a popular style guide
choose Standard: [https://github.com/standard/standard](https://github.com/standard/standard)
What format do you want your config file to be in? select JSON
Would you like to install them now with npm? Choose Yes suggestions above can be modified based on your specific project need

The series of actions above will generate an eslint configuration file.

Edit the configuration file. Under the extends field, add "prettier" like so;

{
  ...
  "extends": [
    ...
    "prettier"
  ],
  ...
}

Create .eslintignore file and exclude dist folder like so

dist/**

Finally, let's create nodemon.json

{
  "verbose": false,
  "delay": "0",
  "ignore": ["*.test.js", "dist/*"]
}

Run your code

npm run dev

You should get a message in the console that reads

Server is running on port 9090

Commit and push your work to Github

💪🏽👨🏽‍💻🚀

Cover image credit: Clément H, Unsplash.com

DEV Community: Abdul-Samii Ajala

Setup a Node/ExpressJS API Project in less than 10mins

Create your project repository

Clone the repo

set project configurations

Run your code