typescript-express-starter

A somewhat opinionated starter template for a TypeScript - ExpressJS project built with

• server - Express
• linting - ESLint + Prettier
• testing - Jest
• logging - winston
• env management - dotenv

Setting up this codebase

1. Ensure that Node.js is installed (node >= 14 and npm >= 7)
2. Clone the repository

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/riteshgn/typescript-express-starter.git <project_name>

3. Install dependencies

npm clean-install

4. Copy .env-template to a .env file and set the APP_PORT variable
5. Start the server in development mode using npm run start
6. Test the ping route by launching below URL in the browser

http://localhost:<APP_PORT>/api/v1/ping

7. Run the tests using

npm run test

Project structure

Source files

Name	Description
src/app.ts	Creates the express app configuring it with required middleware
src/index.ts	Entrypoint of the project. Configures the app with required dependencies and serves the app on configured port
src/router.ts	The main router which bootstraps the express app with all required routes
src/server.ts	Serves the app
src/resources/<version>	Contains versioned resources. Each resource folder will atleast have a <resource>.router.ts and <resource>.controller.ts. It will also contain all handler, data access and helpers for that resource
src/resources/resources.d.ts	Common types used by the resources
src/utils	Contains all utility modules like the logger

Note: All tests are inside __tests__ folder co-located with the corresponding source modules. Test files are named as <module>.test.ts

Configuration files

Name	Description
.env-template	A template with all environment variables used in the project. Should be copied into a .env file and filled with required values. Do not check-in the .env file
.eslintignore	Files which the linter should ignore. See: https://eslint.org/docs/user-guide/configuring/ignoring-code#the-eslintignore-file
.eslintrc.json	Basic ESLint configuration. Simply to setup prettier and typescript
.gitignore	Files which git should ignore like the coverage/, dist/ and node_module/ folders. See: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore
.prettierrc.json	Prettier settings. See: https://prettier.io/docs/en/configuration.html
jest.config.ts	Jest test configurations. See: https://jestjs.io/docs/configuration
tsconfig.json	TypeScript configuration. See: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/tsconfig-json.html

Scripts

Build and Serve

• Compile the typescript and dump the output into dist/ directory

npm run build

• Start a server to serve the distribution in the dist/ directory. Ensure that the .env is created and the APP_PORT variable is set

npm run serve

Serve in watch mode

• Start a server in watch mode. No need to build the distribution first. Ensure that the .env is created and the APP_PORT variable is set

npm run start

Testing & Static Analysis

• Show typescript compilation and linting issues

npm run lint

• Execute the jest tests

npm run test

• Execute the jest tests and print coverage information

npm run test:coverage

• Execute the jest tests in watch mode along with coverage information

npm run test:watch