Express Tools - The Server Wizard 🚀

Elevate your Express applications effortlessly with Express Tools, The Ultimate Server Wizard for Effortless Backend Brilliance.

A comprehensive back-end framework designed to supercharge your Express apps.

While Express remains renowned for its simplicity and minimalism, harnessing its full potential often demands meticulous configuration, especially when preparing for production deployment.

Why Choose Express Tools?

Streamlined Configuration: Express Tools takes care of all essential middleware and error handler setup within Express, sparing you from the intricacies of initial configuration.

Empowering Helpers: Benefit from a rich array of dedicated helpers tailored for validations, responses, logging, encryption, caching, and more. These fundamental functionalities form the backbone of any robust backend server.

Reliable Stability: Core server functionalities should be consistently updated and rigorously tested before deployment. By utilizing Express Tools, you can focus on developing your application, secure in the knowledge that configuration complexities are expertly handled.

Experience the Efficiency - Start Your Server in Just Two Lines:

const server = require('express-tools')
server()

Docs

Build API

const { server, _r } = require('express-tools')
const app = server(8080) // or `ET_PORT` env variable can also used to set the port.

app.get('/status', (req, res) => {
  _r.success({ req, res })
})

app.get('/api/my-api', (req, res) => {
  _r.success({ req, res, payload: { data: 'Hello there!' } })
})

app.use('*', (req, res) => {
  _r.error({ req, res, httpCode: 404, code: 'NOT_FOUND', message: 'Page not found!' })
})

Environment

No need to rely on some package to read environment variables from .env file.

const { _env } = require('express-tools')
console.log(_env('MY_VAR'))

Response module

Get rid of uneven responses from the server.

Success response

const { _r } = require('express-tools')

// Success response
app.get('/example-api', (req, res) => {
  _r.success({ req, res, payload: { data: 'Hello there!' }, message: '' })
})

Response

{
  "id": 1,
  "code": "OK",
  "message": "",
  "payload": { "data": "Hello there!" }
}

To log request/response, set ET_LOGS environment variable to yes in the .env file

ET_LOGS = yes

Error response

// Error response
app.get('/example-error', (req, res) => {
  try {
    const a = {}
    a.b.c()
    _r.success({ req, res })
  } catch (error) {
    _r.error({ req, res, error, message: 'Some error occurred!' })
  }
})

To log complete error details, set the ET_DEBUG environment variable to yes in the .env file

ET_DEBUG = yes

Render views from .ejs templates

Set views directory path in the .env file

ET_VIEWS_DIR = ./views

app.get('/example-render', (req, res) => {
  _r.render({ req, res, path: 'page/home', payload: { data: 'abc' } })
})

Project structure

/views
  /pages
    /home.ejs
.env
index.js

EJS templating engine is used. Payload is passed to the template.

Static files

To serve static files from a directory, set static directory path variable in the .env file

ET_STATIC_DIR = ./public

Project structure

/public
  /example.txt
.env
index.js

Example file will be available at {HOST}/example.txt

To append root path, set static root variable in the .env file

ET_STATIC_ROOT = /static

Now the example file will be available at {HOST}/static/example.txt

Redirect response

app.get('/example-redirect', (req, res) => {
  _r.redirect({ req, res, path: '/redirect-to-path' })
})

Dead request

Express Tools itself handles dead requests, the error you get when you try to send the response when it's already sent once. Even though the error is handled by Express Tools still it logs the error in the console with the request ID to detect the API causing the problem.

app.get('/dead', (req, res) => {
  _r.success({ req, res })
  _r.success({ req, res }) // <- This should log the error, as response is already sent!
})

Request validation

Using Joi

app.get(
  // Route
  '/joi',

  // Validator
  (req, res, next) => {
    return _validate.joi(req, res, next, {
      name: $joi.string().min(3).required()
    })
  },

  // Controller
  (req, res) => {
    return _r.success({ req, res })
  }
)

Using AJV

app.get(
  // Route
  '/ajv',

  // Validator
  (req, res, next) => {
    return _validate.ajv(req, res, next, {
      type: 'object',
      additionalProperties: false,
      required: ['name'],
      properties: {
        name: { type: 'string', minLength: 3 }
      }
    })
  },

  // Controller
  (req, res) => {
    return _r.success({ req, res })
  }
)

• Use Joi if you want simplicity.
• Use AJV if you want stability.
• ET automatically rejects invalid requests

To ensure an empty request is received from the server EMPTY_REQUEST helper can be used.

app.get('/empty', EMPTY_REQUEST, (req, res) => _r.success({ req, res }))

Reading validated data in the controller

;(req, res) => {
  const name = req.bind.name
  console.log(name)

  _r.success({ req, res })
}

Tiny DB

Store data on the server with TDB

const { _tdb } = require('express-tools')

// Initialize
_tdb.init()

// Set `abc`
_tdb.set('abc', 'xyz')

// Read key `abc`
console.log(_tdb.get('abc'))

// Clear key `abc`
_tdb.clear('abc')

// Clear all data
_tdb.clear()

TDB saves all the data in .tdb.json. To use a custom file set the file name in env variable ET_TDB_FILE.

Server insights

• Request per second
• Total requests server
• Average response size
• Average request processing time

const { _r } = require('express-tools')

console.log({
  rps: _r.getRPS(), // Requests per second
  totalRequestsServed: _r.getTotalRequestsServed()
  avgProcessionTime: _r.getAvgProcessionTime(),
  avgResponseSize: _r.getAvgResponseSize(),
})

Encryption & hashing

// Encrypt/Decrypt example
const encryptedText = _encrypt('Hello!', 'my-secure-key')
const decryptedText = _decrypt(encryptedText, 'my-secure-key')

// MD5 hashing example
console.log(_md5('Hello!'))

Templating

Express Tools support EJS templating out of the box with render type response.

_r.render({ req, res, path: 'page/home', payload: { data: 'abc' } })

Do not forget to set ET_VIEWS_DIR variable in the .env file, check response module usage above for more details.

Misc

• Set ET_DELAY env variable to add a custom delay (in milliseconds) in response. It is generally used in testing.

• To Append request/response logs ID with a custom text, set the custom text in ET_ID_PREFIX env variable. Generally used in microservice architecture to detect the particular server from which the request is sent.

• To manually initialize response module set ET_AUTO_INIT_R = no. It's used when requests are handled & returned by your middleware before response module. To initialize response module, app.use(_r.init)

Exported modules

• Request ($axios)
• Express ($express)
• Validation ($ajv, $joi)
• Chalk ($chalk)

All Express Tools .env variables

# Server port
ET_PORT=8080

# Log request/response
ET_LOGS=yes
# Log complete errors
ET_DEBUG=yes

# Static directory
ET_VIEWS_DIR=./views

# Static files directory
ET_STATIC_DIR=./public
# Static files root
ET_STATIC_ROOT=/static

# Misc
ET_DELAY=
ET_ID_PREFIX=
ET_AUTO_INIT_R=

Demo project

Check the demo proejct build with express-tools present in demo directory.

Developer

Developed & maintained by neilveil. Give a star to support my work.