express-ts-starter

Created for having an even smaller amount of time spent in creating the boilerplate to do the job for a basic express server with typescript support.

Project structure

The project is structured as follows:

express-ts-starter
├── README.md
├── node_modules
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── tslint.json
├── .env
├── .mocharc
├── .eslintrc
├── .gitignore
├── .github
├── src
│   ├── resources
|   │   ├── ...
│   ├── routes
|   │   ├── index.ts
|   │   ├── RootEndpoint.ts
|   ├── shared
|   │   ├── Logger.ts
|   │   ├── TestClass.ts
|   ├── app.ts
│   └── Server.ts
└── test
    ├── e2e
    └── unit
|   │   ├── TestClass.spec.ts
└── utils
│   ├── copyAssets.ts

Quick overview

Creates a boilerplate for an express-based server with typescript support. The application comprises the following ready-to-use modules:

Ready-to-dist assets/resource folder

Simply create an folder named src/resources and pack all your resources/assets inside of it. The existing build scripts will automatically copy them into the dist folder when running npm run build to build the application.

Ready-to-transpile express setup

A basic express app server, written in TypeScript, using a reusable, easy-to-maintain and extensible routing principle for clean and easy-to-use API endpoints (src/routes). Transpile it via npm run build or directly serve it with hot-reload functionality via npm run serve.

Convenient usage of global project properties with zero module imports

Simply add your environment variables in .env and the included dotenv module will mount them into the app on start. You can access them from anywhere using process.env.<your-prop-name>.

Custom logger with integrated tracing

Includes logging and tracing middleware from the beginning for each request to the app instance. Provides a trackingId for better traceability and logging experience. Just add a log, e.g. via logger.info('Some message') and let the logger/tracer do the rest.

Unit testing via mocha/chai

Full TypeScript support for unit tests using Mocha as testing foundation and Chai assertion. There is a example unit test in test/unit/TestClass.spec.ts. You can simply run the tests via npm run test. Be aware that since ts-node and ts-config are required for registering the test modules in mocharc, you must ensure that the respective node packages are installed globally on your machine: