Writing Scrum Toolkit #3 - Server with Node, TypeScript, Websocket and TypeORM

In the last article, we cover the setup for the client-side of the application. Today we are going to look closely at server-side part. 🚀

Application API is written with Express framework for file serving and Websocket for communication. Entry file for server:

// ...

dotenv.config();
const port = process.env.PORT;
const app: Express = express();
const server = http.createServer(app);

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.get('(/*)?', async (req, res, next) => {
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'index.html'));
});

AppDataSource.initialize().then(async () => {
  console.info('Database connected');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

const io = new Server<IncomingEvents, OutgoingEvents, {}, User>(server, {
  transports: ['websocket', 'polling'],
});

io.on('connection', (socket: Socket<IncomingEvents, OutgoingEvents, {}, User>) => {
  registerUsersHandlers(io, socket);
  registerCardsHandlers(io, socket);
  registerBoardsHandlers(io, socket);
});

server.listen(port, () => {
  // eslint-disable-next-line no-console
  console.log(`Server is running at http://localhost:${port}`);
});

You can see we register events similar to what we did on client-side. That is because we are using the same set of events.

export type IncomingUsersEvents = {
  Join: (data: {boardId: string, nickname: string; avatar: number;}) => void;
  SetSelectedPlanningCard: (data: {selectedPlanningCard: number}) => void;
  ToggleReady: () => void;
  ChangeUserData: (data: {nickname: string, avatar: number}) => void;
}

export type OutgoingUsersEvents = {
  Joined: (data: {
    localUser: RawUser,
    users: RawUser[],
    cards: RawCard[],
    board: {id: string, stage: number, maxVotes: number, timerTo: number, mode: string},
  }) => void;
  UserState: (data: {user: RawUser}) => void;
  UsersState: (data: {users: RawUser[]}) => void;
}

export type IncomingCardsEvents = {
  CreateCard: (data: {content: string, column: number}) => void;
  UpdateCard: (data: {cardId: string, content: string}) => void;
  DeleteCard: (data: {cardId: string}) => void;
  GetCards: () => void;
  GroupCards: (data: {cardId: string, stackedOn: string}) => void;
  UngroupCards: (data: {cardId: string}) => void;
  UpvoteCard: (data: {cardId: string}) => void;
  DownvoteCard: (data: {cardId: string}) => void;
}

export type OutgoingCardsEvents = {
  CardState: (data: {card: RawCard}) => void;
  DeleteCard: (data: {cardId: string}) => void;
  CardsState: (data: {cards: RawCard[]}) => void;
}

export type IncomingBoardsEvents = {
  SetTimer: (data: {duration: number}) => void;
  SetBoardMode: (data: { mode: string }) => void;
  SetMaxVotes: (data: {maxVotes: number}) => void;
  SetStage: (data: {stage: number}) => void;
}

export type OutgoingBoardsEvents = {
  BoardConfig: (data: {board: {
    stage: number,
      timerTo: number,
      maxVotes: number,
      mode: string,
  }}) => void;
}

export type IncomingEvents = IncomingUsersEvents & IncomingCardsEvents & IncomingBoardsEvents;
export type OutgoingEvents = OutgoingUsersEvents & OutgoingCardsEvents & OutgoingBoardsEvents;

And handlers are using these events as follows:

// ...

const registerCardsHandlers = (
  io: Server<IncomingEvents, OutgoingEvents, {}, User>,
  socket: Socket<IncomingEvents, OutgoingEvents, {}, User>,
) => {
  socket.on('CreateCard', async ({ content, column }) => {
    try {
      if (Joi.string().min(1).max(512).validate(content).error) {
        console.error(`CreateCard: Invalid content: ${content}`);
        return;
      }

      if (Joi.number().allow(0, 1, 2).validate(column).error) {
        console.error(`CreateCard: Invalid column: ${column}`);
        return;
      }

      const card = await Cards.create({
        content,
        column,
        board: {
          id: socket.data.boardId,
        },
        user: {
          id: socket.data.userId,
        },
        stackedOn: '',
        votes: [],
      }).save();

      io.to(socket.data.boardId || '')
        .emit('CardState', { card: getRawCard(card) });
    } catch (error) {
      console.error(error);
    }
  });
// ...

export default registerCardsHandlers;

To communicate with the backend server is using TypeORM. Initially, it has been connecting to Postgres but for my purpose, it was overkill so I switched to SQLite which is faster to provision, develop and maintain in this small app. If you want to switch back to Postgres it's just changing a few lines in the dataSource config.

import { DataSource } from 'typeorm';
import dotenv from 'dotenv';
import Boards from './Boards';
import Cards from './Cards';
import Users from './Users';
import Votes from './Votes';

dotenv.config();

const AppDataSource = new DataSource({
  type: 'sqlite',
  database: './db.sqlite',
  synchronize: true,
  logging: true,
  entities: [Boards, Cards, Users, Votes],
  subscribers: [],
  migrations: [],
});

export default AppDataSource;

Models are simple entity classes that are extended TypeORM BaseEntity with some pre-made static methods to create and execute SQL queries.

export enum BoardMode {
  RETRO= 'retro',
  PLANNING_HIDDEN = 'planning_hidden',
  PLANNING_REVEALED = 'planning_revealed',
}

@Entity()
export default class Boards extends BaseEntity {
  @PrimaryGeneratedColumn('uuid')
    id: string;

  @OneToMany(() => Cards, (card) => card.board)
    cards: Cards[];

  @OneToMany(() => Users, (user) => user.board)
    users: Users[];

  @Column({
    type: 'integer',
    name: 'stage',
  })
    stage: number;

  @Column({
    type: 'integer',
    name: 'max_votes',
  })
    maxVotes: number;

  @Column({
    type: 'varchar',
    name: 'mode',
  })
    mode: string;

  @Column({
    name: 'timer_to',
  })
    timerTo: Date;

  @CreateDateColumn({
    name: 'created_at',
  })
    createdAt: Date;

  @UpdateDateColumn({
    name: 'updated_at',
  })
    updatedAt: Date;
}

TypeORM was a great choice for small API servers to use. And in compare to Sequelize it has much clear syntax and works pretty well with TypeScript.