Boilerplate API

A general purpose boilerplate for building APIs with hapi

Getting Started

In this example our project is called my-project 💧

$ curl -LOk https://github.com/devinivy/boilerplate-api/archive/master.zip
$ unzip master.zip
$ mv boilerplate-api-master/ my-project/
$ cd my-project/

Now install the dependencies and start running the server 🌊

$ npm install
$ npm start

If everything goes well you should see this 🏄

> [email protected] start /Users/maxfelker/my-project
> node server
Server started at http://0.0.0.0:3000

Now your app is running at http://0.0.0.0:3000 🚰 hapi boiling!

Tools

Here are a list of tools we include in the project

Name	Description
dogwater	Integrates the Waterline ORM
sails-disk	A local disk adapter for Waterline ORM
haute-couture	File-based hapi plugin composer
glue	Server composer for hapi.js
hoek	Node utilities shared amongst the extended hapi universe
joi	Object schema validation
bassmaster	Batch request plugin for hapi
boom	HTTP-friendly error objects
hapi-swagger	A Swagger interface for hapi
lab	Node.js test framework
labbable	No-fuss hapi server testing

My First Boil

In this simple example, we're going show you how to setup an endpoint where we can get a list of dogs as well as create and update dogs.

Create the Model

In order for the application to store and retrieve data from the database, we need to setup a model definition for dogs. We place our model definition in lib/models/dogs.js. This model definition is simple - we'll just save the name and type of dog for now.

We prefer model identities to be plural (e.g. dogs not dog) and dash-case (e.g. dog-houses not dogHouses or dog_houses). When possible, the filename containing a model definition should be named with the model identity, so lib/models/dog-houses.js will contain the dog-houses model definition. It should be noted that when dealing with Waterline, this means that you'll need to exercise special care when accessing models via request.collections() - fetching dog-houses requires you to type request.collections()['dog-houses'].

'use strict';

module.exports = {
    identity: 'dogs',
    connection:'diskDb',
    attributes: {
      name: {
        type: 'string',
        required: true
      },
      type: {
        type: 'string',
        required: true
      }
    }
};

Create the Route

We need to create a route definition for our dogs. We do this by creating a file in lib/routes/dogs.js. haute-couture will find your plugin and start using it the next time the server is started.

We also prefer dash-casing of routes (e.g. dogs/change-houses not dogs/changeHouses) and the base of the route should be the same as the model identity (e.g. dogs/change-houses not dog/change-houses). When possible the route definitions should be in a file with the same name as the model the routes are interacting with, so lib/routes/dog-house.js will contain the routes for the dog-houses model.

Below you'll see a GET route that retrieves a list of dogs by using dogwater to integrate with sails-disk DB. After that, we see a POST route that creates a dog with the specific type and name of the dog.

'use strict';

module.exports = [
  {
    method: 'get',
    path: '/dogs',
    config: {
      tags: ['api'],
      handler: (request, reply) => {

        const Dogs = request.collections().dogs;

        reply(Dogs.find());
      }
    }
  },
  {
    method: 'post',
    path: '/dogs',
    config: {
      tags: ['api'],
      handler: (request, reply) => {

        const Dogs = request.collections().dogs;

        reply(Dogs.create({
          type: request.payload.type,
          name: request.payload.name
        }));
      }
    }
  },
];

Test It Out!

With both of these files in place, restart your server and browse to the dogs http://0.0.0.0:3000/dogs 🐶 You should get back an empty array.

Time to make a dog! Make a POST request to the dogs endpoint:

curl --data "name=Gus&type=Leonberger" http://0.0.0.0:3000/dogs

Now browse back to http://0.0.0.0:3000/dogs and you should get a response like this:

[
  {
    "type":"Leonberger",
    "name":"Gus",
    "createdAt":"2016-06-15T15:11:58.477Z",
    "updatedAt":"2016-06-15T15:11:58.477Z",
    "id":1
  }
]

Check My Swag

With hapi-swagger, it's easy to see your new routes, docs and test out what you just built:

http://0.0.0.0:3000/swagger