@marceliwac/scaffoldme v0.0.2

ScaffoldME

ScaffoldME is your tool for getting up and running with Mongoose and Express for a REST-ful API.

It provides a basic utility that scaffolds a structure of models, routers and controllers that simplifies the process of coding out the basic file structure for a sensible API.

Installation

The package should be installed globally.

npm i -g @marceliwac/scaffoldme

Usage

The package currently allows to initialise the directory structure for new projects, as well as integrate new model-based endpoints (i.e. routes) with associated controllers by adding a new model.

Initialisation

To initialise the directory structure in a newly created project, simply type:

scaffoldme init

The project directory has to fulfil several criteria for the command to succeed. Firstly, the directories for models, routers and controllers should not be present in the root path of the directory. Secondly, the index file for the directory of routers should not contain an index file.

Upon success, the following directory tree will be created:

.                   # Project root
├── controllers     # Controllers handling the endpoint routes
├── models          # Mongoose models
├── routes          # Route endpoint mappings
│   ├── index.js    # Main handler for registering routes 

Adding models

Once the project directory has been initialised to conform to the package's structure, the scaffolding for new models can be created by calling the add operation.

scaffoldme add <ModelName>

The model name has to follow PascalCase convention!

Running the command with a model name of SpaceCat should result in the following directory structure:

.                               # Project root
├── controllers                 # Controllers handling the endpoint routes
│   ├── SpaceCatController.js   # Controller for the SpaceCat endpoint 
├── models                      # Mongoose models
│   ├── SpaceCat.js             # SpaceCat model
├── routes                      # Route endpoint mappings
│   ├── index.js                # Main handler for registering routes 
│   ├── spaceCatRouter.js       # Routing configuration for SpaceCat endpoint 

By default this command creates two endpoints for the created model. The first one is bound to the default Mongoose find() method, and the second one to the findById() method. These methods are wrapped into functions withing the corresponding controller (class) file. The bindings for those functions are placed within the router file for that model and given an endpoint within modified router index file.

The command also creates the file for a model, which by default contains only a single name parameter. This model can be then changed freely and modified to accommodate for the application's needs.

It is important to acknowledge that running the add operation results in the re-build of the router index file. This uses ALL of the existing files under models directory assuming that the corresponding controllers and routes are present.

Registering routes

To register routes, the index file in routes/ containing the Router class should be used. The usage follows a simple pass-through pattern for the main Express app object, and can be used like so:

const express = require('express')
const Router = require('./routes')

const app = express()
Router.registerRoutes(app);

Future work

Several issues are planned for the future updates of this module. Following is a non-exhaustive list of features planned for development:

• Help operation (display help)
• Remove model operation (remove model and associated files)
• Configuration files for tweaking the naming and behaviour
• Unit and E2E tests
• CI/CD - Continuous integration and delivery

Contributing

If you are interested in the further development of the module, feel free to submit an issue via GitHub issues. It will be used both for bug tracking and feature development.