Building RESTful APIs with Deno: A Boilerplate for Rapid Development

Hey, Dev.to community! Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Deno REST, a straightforward boilerplate project for building RESTful APIs using Deno, Oak, and deno_mongo. Deno is a secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript, Oak is a middleware framework for Deno's HTTP server, and deno_mongo is a MongoDB driver for Deno.

Features

Deno REST comes packed with several useful features to help you jumpstart your API development:

• Organized by Model, Controller, Service structure
• MongoDB integration with deno_mongo
• JWT-based authentication
• User authorization with role-based access control
• CORS support for handling cross-origin requests
• Environment management via .env files
• Request validation to ensure valid data
• Graceful error handling
• Database seeding for initial data
• User roles and permissions management
• Password hashing with BCrypt
• Denon integration for automatic server restarts
• Integration tests for easy testing
• Docker and CircleCI integration for containerization and continuous integration

Libraries Utilized

Deno REST leverages the following libraries:

• Oak - Middleware framework for Deno's net server
• deno_mongo - MongoDB driver for Deno
• cors - CORS middleware for Deno
• djwt - JSON Web Tokens in Deno, based on JWT and JWS specifications
• yup - Schema builder for value parsing and validation
• bcrypt - OpenBSD Blowfish password hashing algorithm

Getting Started

To get started with Deno REST, follow these steps:

1. Install Deno: Instructions and official installation guide
2. Set up Environment Variables: Review the .environments/.env.example file and create a suitable .env file based on your needs.
3. Install Denon: Follow the Denon installation guide

4. Database Seeding: Use the provided seeding script to populate the database with initial data:
   

   denon run --allow-read --allow-write --allow-net --unstable seed.ts
   

5. Running the Project: Start the project using the following command:
   

   denon start
   

User Roles and Permissions

Customize user roles and permissions by modifying the config/roles.ts file.

API Routes

Deno REST includes the following API routes:

• GET /users
• GET /users/:id
• POST /users
• PUT /users/:id
• DELETE /users/:id

Contributing and License:
Contributions to Deno REST are welcome! You can open issues or submit pull requests. The project is licensed under the MIT License.

Conclusion:
With Deno REST, you can kickstart your RESTful API development using Deno, Oak, and deno_mongo. It provides a clean architecture, essential features, and integration with popular libraries, allowing you to focus on building your API logic.

Give Deno REST a try and let us know your feedback! You can find the complete project and documentation on GitHub.

Thank you for reading, and happy coding with Deno REST!