README

blocks

REST API framework for Node.js

Request-Response cycle

Features
Install
Example
Configuration
Routes
Plugins
- Custom plugin
Develop
Changelog

Features

Validate input

Pass request data (headers, body, query parameters, URL parameters) through custom JSON Schemas defined for each route. Make sure no unwanted data gets in, de-clutter the route logic and make the API behave more consistent.
If validation fails, an automatic 409 Conflict response will be sent.

Permissions

Function outside of main route logic. If it returns false, an automatic 403 Forbidden response will be sent.

Plugin / Dependency Injection

Separate 3rd party systems logic or splitting code for better SOC

Promises

async/await in Plugins and Routes

Other

File upload and form parsing for multipart/form-data - busboy
Middleware support of existing package - connect
JSON Web Token - jsonwebtoken
Query string parsing - qs
Route parameter parsing - path-to-regexp
Cross-origin resource sharing - cors
Secure your API with various HTTP headers - helmet

Install

npm install @asd14/blocks

Example

src/index.js

import http from "http"
import glob from "glob"
import { block } from "@asd14/blocks"

// Initialize `block` app
const app = block({
  plugins: glob.sync("src/plugins/*.js", { absolute: true }),
  routes: glob.sync("src/**/*.route.js", { absolute: true }),
})

// After plugins successfully initialize, start http server
app.then(([middleware, plugins]) => {
    const server = http.createServer(middleware)

    server.listen({
      port: 4269 
    })

    server.on("error", error => {
      console.log("Server error", error)
    })

    server.on("listening", () => {
      console.log(`Server started on port ${process.env.PORT}`)
    })
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.log("Application could not initialize", error)
  })

Configuration

blocks uses a set of process.env variables for configuration. See _env file for all available options and defaults.

Use dotenv for easy local development.

Routes

Default "/ping"

GET: /ping

{
  "name": "foo",
  "ping": "pong",
  "aliveFor": {
    "days": 2, "hours": 1, "minutes": 47, "seconds": 46
  }
}

Definition

src/something.route.js

module.exports = {
  method: "GET",
  path: "/something/:id",

  /**
   * Check "req.query", "req.header", "req.params" and "req.body"
   * against a JSON Schema. If check fails, respond with 409,
   * otherwise continue to ".authenticate".
   */
  schema: require("./something.schema"),


  /**
   * Check for valid JWT.
   *
   * @param {object} plugins 
   *
   * @returns {(object) => Promise<boolean>}
   * If false, responds with 401, otherwise continue to ".authorize".
   */
  authenticate: (/* plugins */) => (/* req */) => true,

  /**
   * Check if is allowed to access underlying resource.
   *
   * @param {object} plugins 
   *
   * @returns {(object) => Promise<boolean>}
   * If false, respond with 403, otherwise continue to ".action".
   */
  authorize: (/* plugins */) => (/* req */) => true,

  /**
   * Route/Controller logic
   *
   * @param {object} plugins 
   *
   * @returns {(object) => Promise<*>} 500 if throws, 201 if POST, 200 otherwise
   */
  action: (/* plugins */) => req => {
    return {
      message: req.ctx.params.id
    }
  },
}

JSON schemas

Input validation is the first step in the processing pipeline. It's meant to validate that incoming data corresponds with what the route expects in order to do it's job properly. See ajv and JSON Schema docs for more on data validation.

Schemas can contain only 4 (optional) keys. Each key must be a ajv compatible object.

headers validates req.headers
params validates req.ctx.params parsed from URL with path-to-regexp
query: validates req.ctx.query parsed from URL with qs
body validates req.ctx.body parsed from req with JSON.parse

See src/plugins/route-default.schema.js for default values.

src/something.schema.js

module.exports = {
  headers: {
    type: "object",
    required: ["authorization"],
    properties: {
      authorization: {
        type: "string",
      },
    },
  },

  params: {
    type: "object",
    additionalProperties: false,
    required: ["id"],
    properties: {
      id: {
        type: "string",
        pattern: "^[a-z0-9-]+quot;,
        maxLength: 25,
        minLength: 25,
      }
    }
  },

  query: {
    type: "object",
    additionalProperties: false,
    properties: {
      offset: {
        type: "integer",
        minimum: 0,
        default: 0,
      },
      limit: {
        type: "integer",
        minimum: 1,
        maximum: 100,
        default: 20,
      },
    },
  },
}

Data formats

date: full-date according to RFC3339
time: time with optional time-zone
date-time: date-time from the same source (time-zone is mandatory)
duration: duration from RFC3339
uri: full URI
email: email address
ipv4: IP address v4
ipv6: IP address v6
regex: tests whether a string is a valid regular expression by passing it to RegExp constructor
uuid: Universally Unique IDentifier according to RFC4122

{
  "params": {
    "type": "object",
    "additionalProperties": false,
    "properties": {
      "id": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "uuid"
      }
    }
  },

  "query": {
    "type": "object",
    "additionalProperties": false,
    "properties": {
      "email": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "email"
      }
    }
  },

  "body": {
    "type": "object",
    "additionalProperties": false,
    "properties": {
      "thumbnailURL": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "uri"
      },
      "createdAt": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "date-time"
      }
    }
  }
}

Plugins

Separate code interfacing with 3rd party libraries or services. pluginus dependency injection library is used.

Plugins are accessible in other plugins, middleware and routes.

Custom plugin

A plugin consists of a constructor function and a list of other plugins that is dependent on.

Whatever the create function returns will be considered as the plugin's content and is what will be exposed to the routes, middleware and other plugins.

src/plugins/database.js

const Sequelize = require("sequelize")

module.exports = {
  /**
   * Array of plugins to wait for before running `create`.
   * Name is constructed from the filename by removing the extension and
   * turning it into CammelCase.
   *
   * Ex. "test__name--BEM.plugin.js" => "TestNameBemPlugin"
   */
  depend: ["Lorem"],

  /**
   * Constructor, return value will be considered the plugin's content exposed
   * to routes, middleware and other plugins.
   *
   * @returns  {Promise<any>}  Plugin content
   */
  create: => Lorem => {
    console.log("Checking DB connection")

    // Database connection, model loading etc
    ...
    return {
      Todos: ...,
      Comments: ...,
    }
  }
}

Develop

git clone git@github.com:asd-xiv/blocks.git && \
  cd blocks && \
  npm run setup

Run all *.test.js in tests folder

npm test

Watch src and tests folders and re-run tests

npm run tdd

Changelog

See the releases section for details.

Usage no npm install needed!