create-express-app

Production-grade Express.js project scaffolder — cross-platform CLI that works everywhere Node.js runs.

Usage

# With npx (no install required)
npx @beast01/create-backend my-api

# Or install globally
npm install -g @beast01/create-backend 
create-express-app my-api

The CLI opens an interactive TUI to configure your project.

What gets generated

| Feature | Options | |---------|---------| | Language | TypeScript, JavaScript | | Database | PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, SQLite, None | | ORM / ODM | Prisma, Drizzle ORM, TypeORM, Sequelize, Mongoose, Native Driver, None | | Auth | JWT + bcryptjs, RBAC middleware | | Caching | Redis (ioredis) | | Logging | Winston, Pino | | Validation | Zod, Joi, Valibot | | File uploads | Multer | | Real-time | Socket.IO | | Background jobs | Bull queue | | Email | Nodemailer | | API docs | Swagger / OpenAPI (swagger-jsdoc + swagger-ui-express) | | Security | Helmet, CORS, express-rate-limit | | Testing | Vitest, Jest + Supertest | | Tooling | ESLint, Prettier, Husky + lint-staged | | CI/CD | GitHub Actions workflow | | Containers | Dockerfile + docker-compose (with DB + Redis services) | | Architecture | Flat (src/) or modular (src/modules/<feature>/) | | Env validation | Zod schema for process.env |

Generated project structure

my-api/
├── src/
│   ├── config/         env config
│   ├── controllers/
│   ├── services/
│   ├── repositories/
│   ├── routes/         index + health
│   ├── middlewares/    errorHandler, notFound, auth, rateLimiter, upload
│   ├── validators/
│   ├── utils/          ApiError, ApiResponse, asyncHandler, jwt
│   ├── lib/            logger, redis, email
│   ├── db/             ORM client / connection
│   ├── types/
│   ├── tests/          health.test.ts
│   ├── app.ts
│   └── server.ts
├── prisma/             (if Prisma selected)
├── .github/workflows/  (if GitHub Actions selected)
├── Dockerfile          (if Docker selected)
├── docker-compose.yml
├── .env + .env.example
├── tsconfig.json
├── package.json
└── README.md

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18
• Git

Cross-platform

Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Uses:

• @clack/prompts for interactive prompts
• execa for cross-platform process execution

License

MIT