jsonapi-server
A config driven NodeJS framework implementing json:api and GraphQL. You define the resources, it provides the api.
Motivation / Justification / Rationale
This framework solves the challenges of json:api and GraphQL without coupling us to any one ORM solution. Every other module out there is either tightly coupled to a database implementation, tracking an old version of the json:api spec, or is merely a helper library for a small feature. If you're building an API and your use case only involves reading and writing to a data store... well count yourself lucky. For everyone else, this framework provides the flexibility to provide a complex API without being confined to any one technology.
A config driven approach to building an API enables:
- Enforced json:api responses
- Automatic GraphQL schema generation
- Request validation
- Payload validation
- Automatic documentation generation
- Automatic inclusions
- Automatic routing
- Automatic handling of relationships
Ultimately, the only things you as a user of this framework need to care about are:
- What are my resources called
- What properties do my resources have
- For each resource, implement a
handlerfor:createing a resourcedeleteing a resourcesearching for many resourcesfinding a specific resourceupdateing a specific resource
We've created handlers to automatically map our config over to database solutions help people get off the ground:
- jsonapi-store-memoryhandler - an in-memory data store to enable rapid prototyping. This ships as a part of
jsonapi-serverand powers the core test suite. - jsonapi-handler-chain - a handler to chain custom behaviour around an existing handler. This ships as a part of
jsonapi-server. More info can be found here - jsonapi-store-relationaldb - using
sequelizeto support PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, MariaDB and SQLite. - jsonapi-store-mongodb - for MongoDB.
- jsonapi-store-elasticsearch - for Elasticsearch.
- jsonapi-store-dynamodb - !SIGNIFICANT WIP! for AWS DynamoDB.
We've also written a library to ease the consumption of a json:api compliant service, if GraphQL isn't your thing:
- jsonapi-client - for NodeJS and Browsers
Full documentation
- Suggested Project Structure
- Configuring jsonapi-server
- Automatic Swagger Generation
- Defining Resources
- Debugging
- Foreign Key Relations
- Chaining handlers together
- Custom Handlers
- Post Processing Examples
- Migrating from an existing express server
- Application metrics
The tl;dr
You can have a complete json:api server providing a photos resource with just this:
var jsonApi = require("jsonapi-server");
jsonApi.setConfig({
port: 16006,
graphiql: true
});
jsonApi.define({
resource: "photos",
handlers: new jsonApi.MemoryHandler(),
attributes: {
title: jsonApi.Joi.string(),
url: jsonApi.Joi.string().uri(),
height: jsonApi.Joi.number().min(1).max(10000).precision(0),
width: jsonApi.Joi.number().min(1).max(10000).precision(0)
}
});
jsonApi.start();
Your new API will be alive at http://localhost:16006/ and your photos resources will be at http://localhost:16006/photos. The GraphiQL interface will be available at http://localhost:16006/.
Show me a full example!
Fire up an example json:api server using the resources mentioned in the official spec via:
$ git clone https://github.com/holidayextras/jsonapi-server.git
$ npm install
$ npm start
then browse to the JSON:API endpoints:
http://localhost:16006/rest/photos
or, for GraphQL:
http://localhost:16006/rest/
the example implementation can be found here