NestJS 8 API project template

Scaffold quickly your next NestJS 8 API project with ❤️ using this template

• Crafted for Docker environments (Dockerfile support and environment variables)
• REST API with TypeORM support
• Swagger documentation, Joi validation, Winston logger, ...
• Folder structure, code samples and best practices

1. Getting started

1.1 Requirements

Before starting, make sure you have at least those components on your workstation:

• An up-to-date release of NodeJS and NPM
• A database such as MariaDB, MySQL or PostgreSQL. You may use the provided docker-compose file.

Docker may also be useful for advanced testing and image building, although it is not required for development.

1.2 Project configuration

Start by cloning this project on your workstation.

git clone https://github.com/saluki/nestjs-template my-project

The next thing will be to install all the dependencies of the project.

cd ./my-project
npm install

Once the dependencies are installed, you can now configure your project by creating a new .env file containing your environment variables used for development.

cp .env.example .env
vi .env

For a standard development configuration, you can leave the default values for API_PORT, API_PREFIX and API_CORS under the Api configuration section. The SWAGGER_ENABLE rule allows you to control the Swagger documentation module for NestJS. Leave it to 1 when starting this example.

Next comes to the TypeORM configuration: change everything according to your own database setup. It may be also useful to turn TYPEORM_SYNCHRONIZE to true in order to avoid migrations during the development phase. Do not modify the values in the TypeORM internals section, unless you change the folder structure.

Last but not least, define a JWT_SECRET to sign the JWT tokens or leave the default value in a development environment. Update the JWT_ISSUER to the correct value as set in the JWT.

1.3 Launch and discover

You are now ready to launch the NestJS application using the command below.

# Perform migrations in your database using TypeORM
npm run migration:run

# Launch the development server with TSNode
npm run dev

You can now head to http://localhost:4000/docs and see your API Swagger docs. The example passenger API is located at the http://localhost:4000/api/v2/passengers endpoint.

For restricted routes, for testing you can use the below JWT

eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJERUZBVUxUX0lTU1VFUiIsImlhdCI6MTYzMTEwNDMzNCwicm9sZSI6InJlc3RyaWN0ZWQifQ.o2HcQBBpx-EJMcUFiqmAiD_jZ5J92gRDOyhybT9FakE

The sample JWT above does not have a expiry, remember to use valid JWT and enforce the required claims in production

2. Project structure

This template was made with a well-defined directory structure.

src/
├── migrations/  # TypeORM migrations created using "npm run migration:create"
├── modules
│   ├── app.module.ts
│   ├── common/  # The common module contains pipes, guards, service and provider used in the whole application
│   ├── passenger/  # A module example that manages "passenger" resources
│   │   ├── controller/
│   │   │   └── passenger.controller.ts
│   │   ├── flow/  # The "flow" directory contains the pipes, interceptors and everything that may change the request or response flow
│   │   │   └── passenger.pipe.ts
│   │   ├── model/
│   │   │   ├── passenger.data.ts  # The model that will be returned in the response
│   │   │   ├── passenger.entity.ts  # The actual TypeORM entity
│   │   │   └── passenger.input.ts  # The model that is used in the request
│   │   ├── passenger.module.ts
│   │   ├── service/
│   │   │   └── passenger.service.ts
│   │   └── spec/
│   └── tokens.ts
└── server.ts

3. Default NPM commands

The NPM commands below are already included with this template and can be used to quickly run, build and test your project.

# Start the application using the transpiled NodeJS
npm run start

# Run the application using "ts-node"
npm run dev

# Transpile the TypeScript files
npm run build

# Internal command used during the Docker build stage
npm run build:docker

# Run the project' functional tests
npm run test

# Lint the project files using TSLint
npm run lint

# Create a new migration named MyMigration
npm run migration:create [MyMigration]

# Run the TypeORM migrations
npm run migration:run

# Revert the TypeORM migrations
npm run migration:revert

4. Project goals

The goal of this project is to provide a clean and up-to-date "starter pack" for REST API projects that are built with NestJS.

5. Roadmap

The following improvements are currently in progress :

• [x] Configuration validation
• [ ] Dockerfile improvements and better usage of environment variables
• [x] Project structure documentation
• [x] TypeORM migration support
• [ ] Healtcheck support
• [ ] Better logging configuration with environment variables
• [ ] Working further on examples for production instructions

6. Contributing

Feel free to suggest an improvement, report a bug, or ask something: https://github.com/saluki/nestjs-template/issues