Setup a jsonapi mock server in almost no time! Uses lowdb⚡️

Usage and 'installing'

Since I plan on updating this as much as possible, use npx instead of installing it via npm globally. You can use npx already if you have npm@^5.2.0.

npx jsonapi-mock

OR (not recommended!)

npm install jsonapi-mock -g

Run this in your project folder

jsonapi-mock

Run it in the directory of the .json file you want to use as a db (i.e, your project root), otherwise it'll generate a dummy one with some sample data. Make sure your dummy data is compliant with the jsonapi spec though, see db.json in this repo for more info on that.

Flags

| Flag | Description | Default | | ------------- |:-------------:| ---- | | --help | shows help with all the flags available | N/A | | -w or --watch | watches a .json file to use as a db | db.json | | -p or --port | what port the server should use | 3004 |

Route params and usage

Let's take the route /posts/posts2 for our example. If we want to get all posts2 we would do a

GET /posts/posts2/

Responds with a 404 if the route /posts2/posts2/ is not found. This is most likely caused by invalid route prefixing for nested routes. Responds with a 200 if success and all the posts2 posts. If we want to create a post2 we would do a

POST /posts/posts2/
{
  "data": {
    "type": "posts2",
    "attributes": {
      "title": "JSONAPI mock is handy!",
      "description": "But there's already so many alternatives.."
    }
  }
}

Responds with a 400 if invalid body Responds with a 200 and the newly created post if success If we want to edit a post2 post we would do a PATCH request, 6b7c4631-927d-454b-885b-8b908e19b9c1 being the ID of the item we want to change.

PATCH /posts/posts2/6b7c4631-927d-454b-885b-8b908e19b9c1
{
  "data": {
    "attributes": {
      "title": "JSON api paints my bikeshed!",
      "description": "It really does! Also the shortest post, we edited this! Yay!"
    }
  }
}

Responds with a 400 if invalid body Responds with a 200 and the new edited post if success If we want to remove a post2 post we would do a DELETE request, same as a PATCH request as in that you have to pass along an ID at the end of the route as a parameter.

DELETE /posts/posts2/6b7c4631-927d-454b-885b-8b908e19b9c1

Responds with a 204 if success. Responds with a 404 if the id of the item is not found

Nested routes and expected structure from your watchfile (so your .json file acting as a DB)

For a non-nested route you would declare your watchfile something like this: This is the structure we expect coming from the jsonapi spec, so nothing abnormal here, this structure has 1 route and that's /posts.

{
    "posts": {
        "data": [
            {
                "type": "posts",
                "id": "fcd856e4-2b35-4e18-abf7-41920cef39de",
                "attributes": {
                    "title": "Lorem ipsum",
                    "description": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Animi dicta dolorum officia sapiente. Ad alias, enim itaque iure libero maxime minus nemo, non nulla, officiis quia saepe totam veritatis voluptatem."
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

For a nested route setup it's slightly different:

{
    "route:posts": {
        "route:posts2": {
            "data": [
                {
                    "type": "posts2",
                    "id": "6b7c4631-927d-454b-885b-8b908e19b9c1",
                    "attributes": {
                        "title": "Lorem ipsum",
                        "description": "Lorem ipsummmmmm dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Animi dicta dolorum officia sapiente. Ad alias, enim itaque iure libero maxime minus nemo, non nulla, officiis quia saepe totam veritatis voluptatem."
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        "data": [
            {
                "type": "posts",
                "id": "fcd856e4-2b35-4e18-abf7-41920cef39de",
                "attributes": {
                    "title": "Lorem ipsum",
                    "description": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Animi dicta dolorum officia sapiente. Ad alias, enim itaque iure libero maxime minus nemo, non nulla, officiis quia saepe totam veritatis voluptatem."
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

You might notice the route: prefix on all of the routes, this is to determine whether a key in the current object is a route or not. The default prefix is route: but you can change the prefix via the configuration file (.jsonapimockrc) This nesting can go infinitely deep (well, as far as your .json filesize allows).

Configuration

You can configurate jsonapi-mock via an .jsonapimockrc file in your project root (so the directory where you're executing the npx jsonapi-mock command). Here's an example configuration with all the possible options:

{
  "port": 3006,
  "watch": "db2.json",
  "nestedRoutePrefix": "route-"
  "contentType": 'application/json',
  "accept": '*/*'
}

The defaults are:

{
  "port": 3004,
  "watch": "db.json",
  "nestedRoutePrefix": "route:"
  "contentType": 'application/vnd.api+json',
  "accept": 'application/vnd.api+json'
}

Motivation

I searched for days to find a good and dead simple jsonapi mock server, all of them required me to do all kinds of crazy stuff and learn their complicated API. I saw json-server and really liked the concept of just defining your routes and some sample data and you're good to go.

Why?

Simple. The concept of this project is; Keep it simple like json-server, but with jsonapi support and more neat features on top of json-server. Plus I didn't find anything that was up to my needs in terms of simplicity and wanted a challenge for myself

Contributing

If you find something that you think should be in the project or want to have a go at contributing, open an issue or make a PR!

To do

• why this package above something that's more extensive than json-server? ✅
• check return values and status codes on different methods (PATCH, DELETE) etc.. ✅
• query operators on routes, sorting etc
• nested routes ✅
• better faulty nested route declaration detection instead of throwing an HTTP 404 error
• proper dummy file with nested and not nested routes. and write documentation for nested routes. ✅
• config .jsonapimock or in package.json 'jsonapimockConfig' for changing the nested route prefix, the accept and content type ,although you really shouldn't change the accept or content type header ;) ✅
• better status code responses compliant to jsonapi spec 🚧
• add links, relationships, included, self and meta support
• improve project structure ✅
• write documentation for using .jsonapimockrc config ✅
• parameters and operators on routes🚧
• keep improving docs 🚧
• add faker flag/possibility for faking data and generating all the dummy data you want
• add more examples in docs 🚧
• if header is not jsonapi compliant, return error with status code 415 ✅
• check if db.json is valid jsonapi.org spec on load
• put all errors in an errorIndex so they're nice and convenient to access and read.
• add more fun stuff