17.4.1 • Published 9 days ago

express-zod-api v17.4.1

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9 days ago

Express Zod API

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Start your API server with I/O schema validation and custom middlewares in minutes.

  1. Why and what is it for
  2. How it works
    1. Technologies
    2. Concept
  3. Quick start — Fast Track
    1. Installation
    2. Set up config
    3. Create an endpoints factory
    4. Create your first endpoint
    5. Set up routing
    6. Create your server
    7. Try it
  4. Basic features
    1. Middlewares
    2. Options
    3. Using native express middlewares
    4. Refinements
    5. Transformations
    6. Dealing with dates
    7. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
    8. Enabling HTTPS
    9. Customizing logger
    10. Child logger
    11. Enabling compression
  5. Advanced features
    1. Customizing input sources
    2. Route path params
    3. Multiple schemas for one route
    4. Response customization
    5. Non-object response including file downloads
    6. File uploads
    7. Serving static files
    8. Connect to your own express app
  6. Special needs
    1. Different responses for different status codes
    2. Array response for migrating legacy APIs
    3. Headers as input source
    4. Accepting raw data
    5. Resources cleanup
  7. Integration and Documentation
    1. Generating a Frontend Client
    2. Creating a documentation
    3. Tagging the endpoints
    4. How to test endpoints
  8. Caveats
    1. Coercive schema of Zod
    2. Excessive properties in endpoint output
  9. Your input to my output

You can find the release notes and migration guides in Changelog.

Why and what is it for

I made this library because of the often repetitive tasks of starting a web server APIs with the need to validate input data. It integrates and provides the capabilities of popular web server, logging, validation and documenting solutions. Therefore, many basic tasks can be accomplished faster and easier, in particular:

  • You can describe web server routes as a hierarchical object.
  • You can keep the endpoint's input and output type declarations right next to its handler.
  • All input and output data types are validated, so it ensures you won't have an empty string, null or undefined where you expect a number.
  • Variables within an endpoint handler have types according to the declared schema, so your IDE and Typescript will provide you with necessary hints to focus on bringing your vision to life.
  • All of your endpoints can respond in a consistent way.
  • The expected endpoint input and response types can be exported to the frontend, so you don't get confused about the field names when you implement the client for your API.
  • You can generate your API documentation in OpenAPI 3.1 and JSON Schema compatible format.

How it works

Technologies

Concept

The API operates object schemas for input and output validation. The object being validated is the combination of certain request properties. It is available to the endpoint handler as the input parameter. Middlewares have access to all request properties, they can provide endpoints with options. The object returned by the endpoint handler is called output. It goes to the ResultHandler which is responsible for transmitting consistent responses containing the output or possible error. Much can be customized to fit your needs.

Dataflow

Quick start

Installation

Run one of the following commands to install the library, its peer dependencies and packages for types assistance.

yarn add express-zod-api express zod winston typescript http-errors
yarn add --dev @types/express @types/node @types/http-errors

or

npm install express-zod-api express zod winston typescript http-errors
npm install -D @types/express @types/node @types/http-errors

Add the following option to your tsconfig.json file in order to make it work as expected:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "strict": true
  }
}

Set up config

Create a minimal configuration. See all available options in sources.

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";
import type { Logger } from "winston";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    listen: 8090, // port, UNIX socket or options
  },
  cors: true,
  logger: { level: "debug", color: true },
});

// Setting the type of the logger used
declare module "express-zod-api" {
  interface LoggerOverrides extends Logger {}
}

Create an endpoints factory

In the basic case, you can just import and use the default factory. See also Middlewares and Response customization.

import { defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

Create your first endpoint

The endpoint responds with "Hello, World" or "Hello, {name}" if the name is supplied within GET request payload.

import { z } from "zod";

const helloWorldEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  method: "get", // or methods: ["get", "post", ...]
  input: z.object({
    // for empty input use z.object({})
    name: z.string().optional(),
  }),
  output: z.object({
    greetings: z.string(),
  }),
  handler: async ({ input: { name }, options, logger }) => {
    logger.debug("Options:", options); // middlewares provide options
    return { greetings: `Hello, ${name || "World"}. Happy coding!` };
  },
});

Set up routing

Connect your endpoint to the /v1/hello route:

import { Routing } from "express-zod-api";

const routing: Routing = {
  v1: {
    hello: helloWorldEndpoint,
  },
};

Create your server

See the complete implementation example.

import { createServer } from "express-zod-api";

createServer(config, routing);

Try it

Start your application and execute the following command:

curl -L -X GET 'localhost:8090/v1/hello?name=Rick'

You should receive the following response:

{ "status": "success", "data": { "greetings": "Hello, Rick. Happy coding!" } }

Basic features

Middlewares

Middleware can authenticate using input or request headers, and can provide endpoint handlers with options. Inputs of middlewares are also available to endpoint handlers within input.

Here is an example of the authentication middleware, that checks a key from input and token from headers:

import { z } from "zod";
import createHttpError from "http-errors";
import { createMiddleware } from "express-zod-api";

const authMiddleware = createMiddleware({
  security: {
    // this information is optional and used for generating documentation
    and: [
      { type: "input", name: "key" },
      { type: "header", name: "token" },
    ],
  },
  input: z.object({
    key: z.string().min(1),
  }),
  middleware: async ({ input: { key }, request, logger }) => {
    logger.debug("Checking the key and token");
    const user = await db.Users.findOne({ key });
    if (!user) {
      throw createHttpError(401, "Invalid key");
    }
    if (request.headers.token !== user.token) {
      throw createHttpError(401, "Invalid token");
    }
    return { user }; // provides endpoints with options.user
  },
});

By using .addMiddleware() method before .build() you can connect it to the endpoint:

const yourEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory
  .addMiddleware(authMiddleware)
  .build({
    // ...,
    handler: async ({ options }) => {
      // options.user is the user returned by authMiddleware
    },
  });

You can connect the middleware to endpoints factory right away, making it kind of global:

import { defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

const endpointsFactory = defaultEndpointsFactory.addMiddleware(authMiddleware);

You can connect as many middlewares as you want, they will be executed in order.

Options

In case you'd like to provide your endpoints with options that do not depend on Request, like database connection instance, consider shorthand method addOptions.

import { defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

const endpointsFactory = defaultEndpointsFactory.addOptions({
  db: mongoose.connect("mongodb://connection.string"),
  privateKey: fs.readFileSync("private-key.pem", "utf-8"),
});

Using native express middlewares

There are two ways of connecting the native express middlewares depending on their nature and your objective.

In case it's a middleware establishing and serving its own routes, or somehow globally modifying the behaviour, or being an additional request parser (like cookie-parser), use the beforeRouting option. However, it might be better to avoid cors here — the library handles it on its own.

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";
import ui from "swagger-ui-express";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    listen: 80,
    beforeRouting: ({ app, logger }) => {
      logger.info("Serving the API documentation at https://example.com/docs");
      app.use("/docs", ui.serve, ui.setup(documentation));
    },
  },
});

In case you need a special processing of request, or to modify the response for selected endpoints, use the method addExpressMiddleware() of EndpointsFactory (or its alias use()). The method has two optional features: a provider of options and an error transformer for adjusting the response status code.

import { defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";
import createHttpError from "http-errors";
import { auth } from "express-oauth2-jwt-bearer";

const factory = defaultEndpointsFactory.use(auth(), {
  provider: (req) => ({ auth: req.auth }), // optional, can be async
  transformer: (err) => createHttpError(401, err.message), // optional
});

Refinements

You can implement additional validations within schemas using refinements. Validation errors are reported in a response with a status code 400.

import { z } from "zod";
import { createMiddleware } from "express-zod-api";

const nicknameConstraintMiddleware = createMiddleware({
  input: z.object({
    nickname: z
      .string()
      .min(1)
      .refine(
        (nick) => !/^\d.*$/.test(nick),
        "Nickname cannot start with a digit",
      ),
  }),
  // ...,
});

By the way, you can also refine the whole I/O object, for example in case you need a complex validation of its props.

const endpoint = endpointsFactory.build({
  input: z
    .object({
      email: z.string().email().optional(),
      id: z.string().optional(),
      otherThing: z.string().optional(),
    })
    .refine(
      (inputs) => Object.keys(inputs).length >= 1,
      "Please provide at least one property",
    ),
  // ...,
});

Transformations

Since parameters of GET requests come in the form of strings, there is often a need to transform them into numbers or arrays of numbers.

import { z } from "zod";

const getUserEndpoint = endpointsFactory.build({
  method: "get",
  input: z.object({
    id: z.string().transform((id) => parseInt(id, 10)),
    ids: z
      .string()
      .transform((ids) => ids.split(",").map((id) => parseInt(id, 10))),
  }),
  output: z.object({
    /* ... */
  }),
  handler: async ({ input: { id, ids }, logger }) => {
    logger.debug("id", id); // type: number
    logger.debug("ids", ids); // type: number[]
  },
});

Dealing with dates

Dates in Javascript are one of the most troublesome entities. In addition, Date cannot be passed directly in JSON format. Therefore, attempting to return Date from the endpoint handler results in it being converted to an ISO string in actual response by calling toJSON(), which in turn calls toISOString(). It is also impossible to transmit the Date in its original form to your endpoints within JSON. Therefore, there is confusion with original method z.date() that should not be used within IO schemas of your API.

In order to solve this problem, the library provides two custom methods for dealing with dates: ez.dateIn() and ez.dateOut() for using within input and output schemas accordingly.

ez.dateIn() is a transforming schema that accepts an ISO string representation of a Date, validates it, and provides your endpoint handler or middleware with a Date. It supports the following formats:

2021-12-31T23:59:59.000Z
2021-12-31T23:59:59Z
2021-12-31T23:59:59
2021-12-31

ez.dateOut(), on the contrary, accepts a Date and provides ResultHanlder with a string representation in ISO format for the response transmission. Consider the following simplified example for better understanding:

import { z } from "zod";
import { ez, defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

const updateUserEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  method: "post",
  input: z.object({
    userId: z.string(),
    birthday: ez.dateIn(), // string -> Date
  }),
  output: z.object({
    createdAt: ez.dateOut(), // Date -> string
  }),
  handler: async ({ input }) => {
    // input.birthday is Date
    return {
      // transmitted as "2022-01-22T00:00:00.000Z"
      createdAt: new Date("2022-01-22"),
    };
  },
});

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

You can enable your API for other domains using the corresponding configuration option cors. It's not optional to draw your attention to making the appropriate decision, however, it's enabled in the Quick start example above, assuming that in most cases you will want to enable this feature. See MDN article for more information.

In addition to being a boolean, cors can also be assigned a function that overrides default CORS headers. That function has several parameters and can be asynchronous.

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  // ... other options
  cors: ({ defaultHeaders, request, endpoint, logger }) => ({
    ...defaultHeaders,
    "Access-Control-Max-Age": "5000",
  }),
});

Please note: If you only want to send specific headers on requests to a specific endpoint, consider the Middlewares or response customization approach.

Enabling HTTPS

The modern API standard often assumes the use of a secure data transfer protocol, confirmed by a TLS certificate, also often called an SSL certificate in habit. When using the createServer() method, you can additionally configure and run the HTTPS server.

import { createConfig, createServer } from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    listen: 80,
  },
  https: {
    options: {
      cert: fs.readFileSync("fullchain.pem", "utf-8"),
      key: fs.readFileSync("privkey.pem", "utf-8"),
    },
    listen: 443, // port, UNIX socket or options
  },
  // ... cors, logger, etc
});

// 'await' is only needed if you're going to use the returned entities.
// For top level CJS you can wrap you code with (async () => { ... })()
const { app, httpServer, httpsServer, logger } = await createServer(
  config,
  routing,
);

Ensure having @types/node package installed. At least you need to specify the port (usually it is 443) or UNIX socket, certificate and the key, issued by the certifying authority. For example, you can acquire a free TLS certificate for your API at Let's Encrypt.

Customizing logger

You can uninstall winston (which is the default and recommended logger) and use another compatible one, having info(), debug(), error() and warn() methods. For example, pino logger with pino-pretty extension:

import pino, { Logger } from "pino";
import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";

const logger = pino({
  transport: {
    target: "pino-pretty",
    options: { colorize: true },
  },
});
const config = createConfig({ logger });

// Setting the type of logger used
declare module "express-zod-api" {
  interface LoggerOverrides extends Logger {}
}

Child logger

In case you need a dedicated logger for each request (for example, equipped with a request ID), you can specify the childLoggerProvider option in your configuration. The function accepts the initially defined logger and the request, it can also be asynchronous. The child logger returned by that function will replace the logger in all handlers.

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";
import { randomUUID } from "node:crypto";

const config = createConfig({
  // logger: ...,
  childLoggerProvider: ({ parent, request }) =>
    parent.child({ requestId: randomUUID() }),
});

Enabling compression

According to Express.js best practices guide it might be a good idea to enable GZIP compression of your API responses.

Install the following additional packages: compression and @types/compression, and enable or configure compression:

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    /** @link https://www.npmjs.com/package/compression#options */
    compression: { threshold: "1kb" }, // or true
  },
});

In order to receive a compressed response the client should include the following header in the request: Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate. Only responses with compressible content types are subject to compression.

Advanced features

Customizing input sources

You can customize the list of request properties that are combined into input that is being validated and available to your endpoints and middlewares. The order here matters: each next item in the array has a higher priority than its previous sibling.

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";

createConfig({
  inputSources: {
    // the defaults are:
    get: ["query", "params"],
    post: ["body", "params", "files"],
    put: ["body", "params"],
    patch: ["body", "params"],
    delete: ["query", "params"],
  }, // ...
});

Route path params

You can describe the route of the endpoint using parameters:

import { Routing } from "express-zod-api";

const routing: Routing = {
  v1: {
    user: {
      // route path /v1/user/:id, where :id is the path param
      ":id": getUserEndpoint,
      // use the empty string to represent /v1/user if needed:
      // "": listAllUsersEndpoint,
    },
  },
};

You then need to specify these parameters in the endpoint input schema in the usual way:

const getUserEndpoint = endpointsFactory.build({
  method: "get",
  input: z.object({
    // id is the route path param, always string
    id: z.string().transform((value) => parseInt(value, 10)),
    // other inputs (in query):
    withExtendedInformation: z.boolean().optional(),
  }),
  output: z.object({
    /* ... */
  }),
  handler: async ({ input: { id } }) => {
    // id is the route path param, number
  },
});

Multiple schemas for one route

Thanks to the DependsOnMethod class a route may have multiple Endpoints attached depending on different methods. It can also be the same Endpoint that handles multiple methods as well.

import { DependsOnMethod } from "express-zod-api";

// the route /v1/user has two Endpoints
// which handle a couple of methods each
const routing: Routing = {
  v1: {
    user: new DependsOnMethod({
      get: yourEndpointA,
      delete: yourEndpointA,
      post: yourEndpointB,
      patch: yourEndpointB,
    }),
  },
};

See also Different responses for different status codes.

Response customization

ResultHandler is responsible for transmitting consistent responses containing the endpoint output or an error. The defaultResultHandler sets the HTTP status code and ensures the following type of the response:

type DefaultResponse<OUT> =
  | {
      // Positive response
      status: "success";
      data: OUT;
    }
  | {
      // or Negative response
      status: "error";
      error: {
        message: string;
      };
    };

You can create your own result handler by using this example as a template:

import { z } from "zod";
import {
  createResultHandler,
  IOSchema,
  getStatusCodeFromError,
  getMessageFromError,
} from "express-zod-api";

const yourResultHandler = createResultHandler({
  getPositiveResponse: (output: IOSchema) => ({
    schema: z.object({ data: output }),
    mimeType: "application/json", // optinal, or mimeTypes for array
  }),
  getNegativeResponse: () => z.object({ error: z.string() }),
  handler: ({ error, input, output, request, response, logger }) => {
    if (!error) {
      // your implementation
      return;
    }
    const statusCode = getStatusCodeFromError(error);
    const message = getMessageFromError(error);
    // your implementation
  },
});

Note: OutputValidationError and InputValidationError are also available for your custom error handling. See also Different responses for different status codes.

After creating your custom ResultHandler you can use it as an argument for EndpointsFactory instance creation:

import { EndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

const endpointsFactory = new EndpointsFactory(yourResultHandler);

Please note: ResultHandler must handle any errors and not throw its own. Otherwise, the case will be passed to the LastResortHandler, which will set the status code to 500 and send the error message as plain text.

Non-object response

Thus, you can configure non-object responses too, for example, to send an image file.

You can find two approaches to EndpointsFactory and ResultHandler implementation in this example. One of them implements file streaming, in this case the endpoint just has to provide the filename. The response schema generally may be just z.string(), but I made more specific ez.file() that also supports ez.file("binary") and ez.file("base64") variants which are reflected in the generated documentation.

const fileStreamingEndpointsFactory = new EndpointsFactory(
  createResultHandler({
    getPositiveResponse: () => ({
      schema: ez.file("buffer"),
      mimeType: "image/*",
    }),
    getNegativeResponse: () => ({ schema: z.string(), mimeType: "text/plain" }),
    handler: ({ response, error, output }) => {
      if (error) {
        response.status(400).send(error.message);
        return;
      }
      if ("filename" in output) {
        fs.createReadStream(output.filename).pipe(
          response.type(output.filename),
        );
      } else {
        response.status(400).send("Filename is missing");
      }
    },
  }),
);

File uploads

Install the following additional packages: express-fileupload and @types/express-fileupload, and enable or configure file uploads:

import { createConfig } from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    upload: true, // or options
  },
});

Refer to documentation on available options. Some options are forced in order to ensure the correct workflow:

{
  abortOnLimit: false,
  parseNested: true,
  logger: {}, // the configured logger (default: winston), using its .debug() method
}

The limitHandler option is replaced by the limitError one. You can also connect an additional middleware for restricting the ability to upload using the beforeUpload option. So the configuration for the limited and restricted upload might look this way:

import createHttpError from "http-errors";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    upload: {
      limits: { fileSize: 51200 }, // 50 KB
      limitError: createHttpError(413, "The file is too large"), // handled by errorHandler in config
      beforeUpload: ({ app, logger }) => {
        app.use((req, res, next) => {
          if (req.is("multipart/form-data") && !canUpload(req)) {
            return next(createHttpError(403, "Not authorized"));
          }
          next();
        });
      },
    },
  },
});

Then you can change the Endpoint to handle requests having the multipart/form-data content type instead of JSON by using ez.upload() schema. Together with a corresponding configuration option, this makes it possible to handle file uploads. Here is a simplified example:

import { z } from "zod";
import { ez, defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";

const fileUploadEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  method: "post",
  input: z.object({
    avatar: ez.upload(), // <--
  }),
  output: z.object({}),
  handler: async ({ input: { avatar } }) => {
    // avatar: {name, mv(), mimetype, data, size, etc}
    // avatar.truncated is true on failure when limitError option is not set
  },
});

You can still send other data and specify additional input parameters, including arrays and objects.

Serving static files

In case you want your server to serve static files, you can use new ServeStatic() in Routing using the arguments similar to express.static(). The documentation on these arguments you may find here.

import { Routing, ServeStatic } from "express-zod-api";
import { join } from "node:path";

const routing: Routing = {
  // path /public serves static files from ./assets
  public: new ServeStatic(join(__dirname, "assets"), {
    dotfiles: "deny",
    index: false,
    redirect: false,
  }),
};

Connect to your own express app

If you already have your own configured express application, or you find the library settings not enough, you can connect the endpoints to your app or any express router using the attachRouting() method:

import express from "express";
import { createConfig, attachRouting, Routing } from "express-zod-api";

const app = express(); // or express.Router()
const config = createConfig({ app /* cors, logger, ... */ });
const routing: Routing = {}; // your endpoints go here

// This async IIFE is only required for the top level CommonJS
(async () => {
  const { notFoundHandler, logger } = await attachRouting(config, routing);

  app.use(notFoundHandler); // optional
  app.listen();

  logger.info("Glory to science!");
})();

Please note that in this case you probably need to parse request.body, call app.listen() and handle 404 errors yourself. In this regard attachRouting() provides you with notFoundHandler which you can optionally connect to your custom express app.

Besides that, if you're looking to include additional request parsers, or a middleware that establishes its own routes, then consider using the beforeRouting option in config instead.

Special needs

Different responses for different status codes

In some special cases you may want the ResultHandler to respond slightly differently depending on the status code, for example if your API strictly follows REST standards. It may also be necessary to reflect this difference in the generated Documentation. To implement this functionality, the createResultHandler method supports a flexible declaration of possible response schemas and their corresponding status codes.

import { createResultHandler } from "express-zod-api";

createResultHandler({
  getPositiveResponse: (output) => ({
    statusCodes: [201, 202], // created or will be created
    schema: z.object({ status: z.literal("created"), data: output }),
  }),
  getNegativeResponse: () => [
    {
      statusCode: 409, // conflict: entity already exists
      schema: z.object({ status: z.literal("exists"), id: z.number().int() }),
    },
    {
      statusCodes: [400, 500], // validation or internal error
      schema: z.object({ status: z.literal("error"), reason: z.string() }),
    },
  ],
  handler: ({ error, response, output }) => {
    // your implementation here
  },
});

Array response

Please avoid doing this in new projects: responding with array is a bad practice keeping your endpoints from evolving in backward compatible way (without making breaking changes). Nevertheless, for the purpose of easier migration of legacy APIs to this library consider using arrayResultHandler or arrayEndpointsFactory instead of default ones, or implement your own ones in a similar way. The arrayResultHandler expects your endpoint to have items property in the output object schema. The array assigned to that property is used as the response. This approach also supports examples, as well as documentation and client generation. Check out the example endpoint for more details.

Headers as input source

In a similar way you can enable the inclusion of request headers into the input sources. This is an opt-in feature. Please note:

  • only the custom headers (the ones having x- prefix) will be combined into the input,
  • the request headers acquired that way are lowercase when describing their validation schemas.
import { createConfig, defaultEndpointsFactory } from "express-zod-api";
import { z } from "zod";

createConfig({
  inputSources: {
    get: ["query", "headers"],
  }, // ...
});

defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  method: "get",
  input: z.object({
    "x-request-id": z.string(), // this one is from request.headers
    id: z.string(), // this one is from request.query
  }), // ...
});

Accepting raw data

Some APIs may require an endpoint to be able to accept and process raw data, such as streaming or uploading a binary file as an entire body of request. In order to enable this feature you need to set the rawParser config feature to express.raw(). See also its options in Express.js documentation. The raw data is placed into request.body.raw property, having type Buffer. Then use the proprietary ez.raw() schema (which is an alias for z.object({ raw: ez.file("buffer") })) as the input schema of your endpoint.

import express from "express";
import { createConfig, defaultEndpointsFactory, ez } from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  server: {
    rawParser: express.raw(), // enables the feature
  },
});

const rawAcceptingEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  method: "post",
  input: ez
    .raw() // accepts the featured { raw: Buffer }
    .extend({}), // for additional inputs, like route params, if needed
  output: z.object({ length: z.number().int().nonnegative() }),
  handler: async ({ input: { raw } }) => ({
    length: raw.length, // raw is Buffer
  }),
});

Resources cleanup

If some entities (database clients for example) do not care about automatically releasing their resources when their instances are destroyed, you can do the following. Return these instances in a middleware so that they become options for Endpoint's handler. Those options are also available as an argument to a Result Handler. Create your own one and clean up resources in accordance with the documentation of that software. The options may however be empty or incomplete in case of errors or failures, so it is necessary to check for their presence programmatically.

import {
  createResultHandler,
  EndpointsFactory,
  createMiddleware,
} from "express-zod-api";

const resultHandlerWithCleanup = createResultHandler({
  handler: ({ options }) => {
    if ("dbClient" in options && options.dbClient) {
      (options.dbClient as DBClient).close(); // sample cleanup
    }
    // your implementation
  },
});

const dbProvider = createMiddleware({
  handler: async () => ({
    dbClient: new DBClient(), // sample entity that requires cleanup
  }),
});

const dbEquippedFactory = new EndpointsFactory(
  resultHandlerWithCleanup,
).addMiddleware(dbProvider);

Integration and Documentation

Generating a Frontend Client

You can generate a Typescript file containing the IO types of your API and a client for it. Consider installing prettier and using the async printFormatted() method.

import { Integration } from "express-zod-api";

const client = new Integration({
  routing,
  variant: "client", // <— optional, see also "types" for a DIY solution
  optionalPropStyle: { withQuestionMark: true, withUndefined: true }, // optional
  splitResponse: false, // optional, prints the positive and negative response types separately
});

const prettierFormattedTypescriptCode = await client.printFormatted(); // or just .print() for unformatted

Alternatively, you can supply your own format function into that method or use a regular print() method instead. The generated client is flexibly configurable on the frontend side using an implementation function that directly makes requests to an endpoint using the libraries and methods of your choice. The client asserts the type of request parameters and response. Consuming the generated client requires Typescript version 4.1 or higher.

// example frontend, simple implementation based on fetch()
import { ExpressZodAPIClient } from "./client.ts"; // the generated file

const client = new ExpressZodAPIClient(async (method, path, params) => {
  const hasBody = !["get", "delete"].includes(method);
  const searchParams = hasBody ? "" : `?${new URLSearchParams(params)}`;
  const response = await fetch(`https://example.com${path}${searchParams}`, {
    method: method.toUpperCase(),
    headers: hasBody ? { "Content-Type": "application/json" } : undefined,
    body: hasBody ? JSON.stringify(params) : undefined,
  });
  return response.json();
});

client.provide("get", "/v1/user/retrieve", { id: "10" });
client.provide("post", "/v1/user/:id", { id: "10" }); // it also substitues path params

Creating a documentation

You can generate the specification of your API and write it to a .yaml file, that can be used as the documentation:

import { Documentation } from "express-zod-api";

const yamlString = new Documentation({
  routing, // the same routing and config that you use to start the server
  config,
  version: "1.2.3",
  title: "Example API",
  serverUrl: "https://example.com",
  composition: "inline", // optional, or "components" for keeping schemas in a separate dedicated section using refs
  // descriptions: { positiveResponse, negativeResponse, requestParameter, requestBody } // check out these features
}).getSpecAsYaml();

You can add descriptions and examples to your endpoints, their I/O schemas and their properties. It will be included into the generated documentation of your API. Consider the following example:

import { defaultEndpointsFactory, withMeta } from "express-zod-api";

const exampleEndpoint = defaultEndpointsFactory.build({
  shortDescription: "Retrieves the user.", // <—— this becomes the summary line
  description: "The detailed explanaition on what this endpoint does.",
  input: withMeta(
    z.object({
      id: z.number().describe("the ID of the user"),
    }),
  ).example({
    id: 123,
  }),
  // ..., similarly for output and middlewares
});

See the example of the generated documentation here

Tagging the endpoints

When generating documentation, you may find it necessary to classify endpoints into groups. For this, the possibility of tagging endpoints is provided. In order to achieve the consistency of tags across all endpoints, the possible tags should be declared in the configuration first and another instantiation approach of the EndpointsFactory is required. Consider the following example:

import {
  createConfig,
  EndpointsFactory,
  defaultResultHandler,
} from "express-zod-api";

const config = createConfig({
  // ..., use the simple or the advanced syntax:
  tags: {
    users: "Everything about the users",
    files: {
      description: "Everything about the files processing",
      url: "https://example.com",
    },
  },
});

// instead of defaultEndpointsFactory use the following approach:
const taggedEndpointsFactory = new EndpointsFactory({
  resultHandler: defaultResultHandler, // or use your custom one
  config, // <—— supply your config here
});

const exampleEndpoint = taggedEndpointsFactory.build({
  // ...
  tag: "users", // or tags: ["users", "files"]
});

How to test endpoints

The way to test endpoints is to mock the request, response, and logger objects, invoke the execute() method, and assert the expectations for calls of certain mocked methods. The library provides a special method testEndpoint that makes mocking easier. It requires you either to install jest (with @types/jest) or vitest (detects automatically), or to specify the fnMethod property assigned with a function mocking method of your testing framework, which can also be node:test module of most modern Node.js versions. However, in order to have proper mocking types in your own tests, you also need to specify MockOverrides once in your tests excplicitly, so the tests should look this way:

import { testEndpoint } from "express-zod-api";

// place it once anywhere in your tests
declare module "express-zod-api" {
  interface MockOverrides extends jest.Mock {} // or Mock from vitest
}

test("should respond successfully", async () => {
  const { responseMock, loggerMock } = await testEndpoint({
    endpoint: yourEndpoint,
    requestProps: {
      method: "POST", // default: GET
      body: {}, // incoming data as if after parsing (JSON)
    },
    // fnMethod — for testing frameworks other than jest or vitest
    // responseProps, configProps, loggerProps
  });
  expect(loggerMock.error).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(0);
  expect(responseMock.status).toHaveBeenCalledWith(200);
  expect(responseMock.json).toHaveBeenCalledWith({
    status: "success",
    data: {},
  });
});

This method is optimized for the defaultResultHandler. With the flexibility to customize, you can add additional properties as needed.

Caveats

There are some well-known issues and limitations, or third party bugs that cannot be fixed in the usual way, but you should be aware of them.

Coercive schema of Zod

Despite being supported by the library, z.coerce.* schema does not work intuitively. Please be aware that z.coerce.number() and z.number({ coerce: true }) (being typed not well) still will NOT allow you to assign anything but number. Moreover, coercive schemas are not fail-safe and their methods .isOptional() and .isNullable() are buggy. If possible, try to avoid using this type of schema. This issue will NOT be fixed in Zod version 3.x.

Excessive properties in endpoint output

The schema validator removes excessive properties by default. However, Typescript does not yet display errors in this case during development. You can achieve this verification by assigning the output schema to a constant and reusing it in forced type of the output:

import { z } from "zod";

const output = z.object({
  anything: z.number(),
});

endpointsFactory.build({
  methods,
  input,
  output,
  handler: async (): Promise<z.input<typeof output>> => ({
    anything: 123,
    excessive: "something", // error TS2322, ok!
  }),
});

Your input to my output

If you have a question or idea, or you found a bug, or vulnerability, or security issue, or want to make a PR: please refer to Contributing Guidelines.

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