create-express-backend-app

🚀 A powerful CLI to bootstrap a scalable, production-ready Express.js backend with MongoDB.

Overview

create-express-backend-app is a command-line interface tool designed to help developers quickly set up a robust backend architecture. It provides a modular, organized structure with pre-configured MongoDB connectivity and a basic User CRUD module to get you started immediately.

Features

• 🏗 Modular Architecture: Built with scalability in mind. Code is organized by modules (Controller, Service, Model, Routes).
• ⚡ Express.js Framework: Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js.
• 🍃 MongoDB & Mongoose: Pre-configured database connection and object modeling.
• 👤 User CRUD: Comes with a fully functional User module.
• 🛠 Environment Configuration: Ready-to-use .env support.
• 📦 Auto Dependency Install: The CLI automatically installs dependencies for you.

Installation

You can use the tool directly via npx (recommended) or install it globally.

Using Standard NPX (Recommended)

npx create-express-backend-app <your-project-name>

Global Installation

npm install -g create-express-backend-app

Then run:

create-express-backend-app my-new-app

Usage

1. Open your terminal.

2. Run the command with your desired project name:

   npx create-express-backend-app my-awesome-backend

3. Interactive Setup: The CLI will ask you a few questions to customize your project:

   • Language: Choose between TypeScript (recommended) or JavaScript.
   • Database Name: Enter the name for your MongoDB database (default is express_app).
   • Port: Specify the port number for the server to run on (default is 8080).

4. The CLI will then:

   • Create a new directory named my-awesome-backend.
   • Clone the boilerplate structure.
   • Install all necessary dependencies (express, mongoose, dotenv, etc.).

5. Navigate into your project:

   cd my-awesome-backend

6. Start the development server:

   npm run dev

Project Structure

The generated project follows a scalable, modular pattern:

my-awesome-backend/
├── src/
│   ├── config/             # Database key configurations
│   ├── constants/          # Application constants
│   ├── middlewares/        # Custom middlewares
│   ├── modules/            # Domain-specific modules
│   │   └── user/           # Example User module
│   │       ├── user.controller.js
│   │       ├── user.model.js
│   │       ├── user.routes.js
│   │       └── user.service.js
│   ├── routes/             # Main route aggregators
│   ├── utils/              # Utility functions
│   ├── app.js              # Express app setup
│   └── server.js           # Server entry point
├── .env.example            # Environment variable examples
├── package.json
└── README.md

Getting Started with the Generated Code

1. Environment Setup: Rename .env.example to .env and configure your MongoDB URI.

   PORT=3000
   MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/myapp

2. Run Server:

   npm run dev

3. Test API: The User module endpoints will be available at /api/users (check src/routes/index.js for the exact path prefix).

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have suggestions or want to add features to the boilerplate:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature/improvement).
3. Commit your changes.
4. Push to the branch.
5. Open a Pull Request.

Author

Ashwin Balas

License

This project is licensed under the ISC License.