Fihtony Constellation Nodejs Express Delivery

Node.js / Express Delivery

When To Apply

• Building REST API servers with Express (v4 or v5).
• Adding middleware: authentication, logging, rate limiting, CORS, body parsing.
• Async route handlers with async/await.
• Environment-based configuration with dotenv.

Project Structure

src/
  app.js          # Express app factory (exported, not listening)
  server.js       # Entry point — calls app.listen()
  routes/         # Router files, one per resource
  middleware/     # Custom middleware
  controllers/    # Route handler logic
  services/       # Business logic
  models/         # Data models / ORM schemas

• Separate the app factory from server.js to allow testing without starting a port.
• Group routes by resource: routes/users.js, routes/products.js, etc.

Route Handler Rules

• Always use async/await with try/catch or a wrapper (asyncHandler) — never leave unhandled promise rejections.
• Return consistent JSON: { data: ... } for success, { error: { message, code } } for errors.
• Validate request body/params with express-validator or zod before processing.
• Use res.status(code).json(payload) — never res.send() for JSON APIs.
• Do not hardcode status codes; use named constants or http-status-codes package.

Middleware

• Register error-handling middleware last with 4 params: (err, req, res, next).
• Use helmet() for security headers and cors() for cross-origin control.
• Use express.json() and express.urlencoded({ extended: true }) for body parsing.

Environment Configuration

• Load with dotenv at the top of server.js: require('dotenv').config().
• Never commit .env files; provide .env.example with placeholder values.
• Access via process.env.VAR_NAME; validate required vars at startup.

Quality Checklist

• All async handlers have error handling; unhandled errors reach the error middleware.
• Input validation runs before controller logic; invalid requests return 400 with a clear message.
• No secrets in source code or logs.
• Tests use supertest against the app factory; no live network calls in unit tests.
• npm start runs the server; npm test runs the test suite — both must work.

Source: fihtony/constellation — distributed by TomeVault.