connect-flash-new

A modern, type-safe, and fully compatible flash messaging middleware for Express. This project is a clean reimplementation of the original connect-flash — actively maintained by the community, for the community.

✨ Features

• 🔐 Safe flash message handling via session
• 🧠 TypeScript-ready (.d.ts included)
• ♻️ Fully compatible with CommonJS (require) and ES Modules (import)
• 🧪 Easy to test (with supertest)
• 🔥 Drop-in replacement for deprecated connect-flash

📦 Installation

npm install @codecorn/connect-flash-new

🚀 Usage

// ✅ ESM / TypeScript
import express from 'express';
import session from 'express-session';
import flash from '@codecorn/connect-flash-new';

// ✅ CommonJS (require)
const express = require('express');
const session = require('express-session');
const flash = require('@codecorn/connect-flash-new');

const app = express();

app.use(session({ secret: 'secret', resave: false, saveUninitialized: true }));
app.use(flash());

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    req.flash('info', 'Welcome back %s!', 'Federico');
    res.send(req.flash('info'));
});

🧪 Testing with Supertest

// ✅ ESM
import request from 'supertest';
import express from 'express';
import session from 'express-session';
import flash from '@codecorn/connect-flash-new';

// ✅ CommonJS
const request = require('supertest');
const express = require('express');
const session = require('express-session');
const flash = require('@codecorn/connect-flash-new');

const app = express();
app.use(session({ secret: 'test', resave: false, saveUninitialized: true }));
app.use(flash());

app.get('/test', (req, res) => {
    req.flash('info', 'Test Message');
    res.json({ messages: req.flash('info') });
});

test('should return flash message', async () => {
    const res = await request(app).get('/test');
    expect(res.body.messages).toContain('Test Message');
});

🔐 Safe Init Helper (Optional)

If you want a one-liner to safely initialize both cookie-parser and connect-flash-new, you can use our helper:

const express = require('express');
const session = require('express-session');
const { safeFlashInit } = require('@codecorn/connect-flash-new/helpers');

const app = express();
app.use(session({ secret: process.env.SESSION_SECRET, resave: false, saveUninitialized: true }));

safeFlashInit(app); // Will use process.env.SESSION_SECRET or throw a warning

🧪 Experimental: flashMessages Middleware (Preview)

In alternativa al classico flash(), puoi usare flashMessages per accedere ai messaggi flash direttamente in res.locals.sessionFlash. Questa funzionalità è opt-in e può essere abilitata nel tuo .env o in modo programmatico:

// lib/flashMessages.js
import { flashMessages } from '@codecorn/connect-flash-new';

app.use(flashMessages);

🔧 Attivazione condizionata via .env

Puoi attivarlo dinamicamente leggendo da .env:

if (process.env.ENABLE_FLASH_MESSAGES === 'true') {
    app.use(flashMessages);
}

Questo middleware:

• 🔄 Passa i messaggi da req.session.flash a res.locals.sessionFlash
• 🧼 Svuota la sessione per evitare messaggi duplicati/zombie
• 🛡️ Inizializza req.session.flash se mancante

⚠️ In fase sperimentale — potrà evolvere con il feedback della community.

🙏 Credits

Originally inspired by connect-flash by @jaredhanson.
This project continues the spirit of the original package, updated for modern Node.js and TypeScript environments.

👤 Maintainer