🚀 Backend Template Generator

A powerful CLI tool to generate production-ready Node.js backend applications with Express.js. Supports both TypeScript and JavaScript, with monolith and microservice architectures, and optional features like authentication, CORS, rate limiting, and more.

✨ Features

• 🎯 TypeScript & JavaScript Support - Choose your preferred language
• 🏗️ Dual Architecture - Monolith or Microservice
• 🐳 Docker Ready - Containerized microservices
• ⚡ PM2 Support - Process management for production
• 🔐 JWT Authentication - Built-in auth with MongoDB
• 🛡️ Security First - CORS, Helmet, Rate Limiting
• 📝 Professional Logging - Morgan + Winston
• 🎨 Colored CLI - Beautiful Vite-like terminal output
• 📋 Project Metadata - Description, author, and keywords support

📦 Installation & Usage

Quick Start

npx @ifecodes/backend-template my-project

Or install globally:

npm install -g @ifecodes/backend-template
ifecodes-template my-project

With Arguments

# Create a monolith
npx @ifecodes/backend-template my-api mono

# Create a microservice
npx @ifecodes/backend-template my-project micro

🧠 Interactive Setup

When you run the CLI, you'll be prompted to choose:

1. Language

• TypeScript (default) - Full type safety and modern tooling
• JavaScript - Transpiled from TypeScript for simplicity

2. Project Metadata

• Description - Project description for package.json
• Author - Your name or organization
• Keywords - Comma-separated keywords for discoverability

3. Project Type

• Monolith API - Traditional single-server architecture
• Microservice - Distributed services with API Gateway

4. Deployment Mode (Microservices only)

• Docker - Container-based deployment with docker-compose
• PM2 - Process manager for Node.js applications

5. Optional Features

• ✅ CORS - Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
• ✅ Helmet - Security headers middleware
• ✅ Rate Limiting - API request throttling
• ✅ Morgan - HTTP request logger

6. Authentication

• ✅ JWT Authentication with MongoDB
• Choose between bcrypt (recommended for Windows) or argon2 for password hashing

🗂 Project Structure

Monolith

my-backend/
├── src/
│   ├── config/         # Configuration files
│   ├── middlewares/    # Custom middlewares
│   ├── modules/        # Feature modules
│   │   └── v1/         # API version 1
│   │       ├── auth/   # Auth module (if enabled)
│   │       └── health/ # Health check
│   ├── models/         # Database models (if auth)
│   ├── utils/          # Utility functions
│   ├── app.ts          # Express app setup
│   ├── routes.ts       # Route definitions
│   └── server.ts       # Server entry point
├── .husky/             # Git hooks
├── .env                # Environment variables
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

Microservice

my-project/
├── shared/              # Shared utilities across services
│   ├── config/         # Environment configs (db.ts only if auth enabled)
│   └── utils/          # Logger, error handlers
├── services/
│   ├── gateway/        # API Gateway (port 4000)
│   ├── health-service/ # Health checks (port 4001)
│   └── auth-service/   # Authentication (port 4002, if enabled)
├── docker-compose.yml  # Docker setup (if selected)
├── pm2.config.js       # PM2 setup (if selected)
├── .env                # Root environment variables
├── .gitignore          # Git ignore (includes .env and node_modules)
├── tsconfig.json       # Root TypeScript config with project references
├── .husky/             # Git hooks
└── package.json        # Root package.json

Note: Each microservice does NOT have its own .env file. Environment variables are managed at the root level through docker-compose.yml or pm2.config.js.

▶️ Running the Application

Monolith

cd my-backend

# Development
npm run dev

# Production
npm run build
npm start

Microservice (Docker)

cd my-project

# Start all services
docker-compose up

# Start in detached mode
docker-compose up -d

# View logs
docker-compose logs -f

# Stop all services
docker-compose down

Microservice (PM2)

cd my-project

# Start all services
pm2 start pm2.config.js

# View logs
pm2 logs

# Monitor services
pm2 monit

# Stop all services
pm2 stop all

🛠 Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js (v18+)
• Language: TypeScript or JavaScript
• Framework: Express.js
• Database: MongoDB (with Mongoose, if auth enabled)
• Authentication: JWT + bcrypt/argon2
• Security: Helmet, CORS, Rate Limiting
• Logging: Morgan, Custom Logger
• Git Hooks: Husky
• Deployment: Docker or PM2

TypeScript vs JavaScript

This CLI generates TypeScript projects by default but also includes explicit JavaScript templates. There is no fragile, on-the-fly TypeScript → JavaScript transform at runtime — the project templates include language-specific variants so the output is predictable and parseable in Node.js.

TypeScript (Default)

• Full type safety and IntelliSense
• Modern ECMAScript features
• Compile-time error checking
• Better tooling and refactoring support

JavaScript

• Pre-authored JavaScript (CommonJS) templates are included
• No TypeScript annotations remain in generated .js files
• DevDependencies that are TypeScript-only are omitted for JS projects
• Same functionality with simpler runtime setup

🌟 Features

✅ Smart Defaults

• Auto-generates README with project-specific instructions
• Creates .env from .env.example with default values
• Configures TypeScript paths for clean imports (@/config, @/utils)
• Project metadata (description, author, keywords) in package.json

✅ Microservice Architecture

• API Gateway on port 4000 (single entry point)
• Service Discovery - Automatically routes to correct service
• Shared Folder - Common utilities across all services
• Health Checks - Built-in monitoring endpoints

✅ Developer Experience

• Hot Reload - Development server with nodemon
• ESLint - Code quality enforcement
• Git Hooks - Pre-commit linting with Husky
• Type Safety - Full TypeScript support

📡 API Endpoints

Monolith

GET  /                  - API information
GET  /api/v1/health     - Health check
POST /api/v1/auth/register - Register user (if auth enabled)
POST /api/v1/auth/login    - Login user (if auth enabled)

Microservice

All requests go through the API Gateway at http://localhost:4000

GET  /health            - Gateway health check
GET  /api/v1/health     - Health service check
POST /api/v1/auth/register - Auth service (if enabled)
POST /api/v1/auth/login    - Auth service (if enabled)

🔧 Environment Variables

Monolith

PORT=4000
NODE_ENV=development

Microservice (Root .env)

NODE_ENV=development

# Gateway Service
GATEWAY_PORT=4000

# Health Service  
HEALTH_SERVICE_PORT=4001

# Auth Service (if enabled)
AUTH_SERVICE_PORT=4002

Note: Microservices use environment variables from docker-compose.yml or pm2.config.js. Individual services don't have .env files.

With CORS

ALLOWED_ORIGIN=http://localhost:3000

With Authentication

MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/your-database-name
JWT_SECRET=your-super-secret-jwt-key-change-this-in-production

🚀 Adding Services (Microservice)

You can add more services to an existing microservice project:

cd my-project
npx @ifecodes/backend-template

# You'll be prompted to name the new service
# Example: user-service, order-service, etc.

The CLI will:

• Create the new service
• Update docker-compose.yml or pm2.config.js
• Configure routing in the API Gateway

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Development

git clone https://github.com/ALADETAN-IFE/backend-template.git
cd backend-template
npm install
npm link

📄 License

MIT

✨ Author

Aladetan Fortune Ifeloju (IfeCodes)
Full Stack Developer & TechPreneur

• GitHub: @ALADETAN-IFE
• Twitter: @IfeCodes

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with ❤️ for the developer community to accelerate backend development.