create-expressify

A CLI tool to scaffold production-ready Express.js backends with TypeScript in seconds.

Installation

# Using npx (recommended)
npx create-expressify my-app

# Using pnpm
pnpm create expressify my-app

# Using yarn
yarn create expressify my-app

# Using bun
bun create expressify my-app

Features

Clean Code Patterns

• Global Error Handler - Centralized error handling middleware
• Custom Error Classes - 24+ pre-built error classes (BadRequest, NotFound, Unauthorized, etc.)
• Response Wrapper - Consistent API response format
• Async Handler - Automatic async/await error catching
• Request Validator - Zod-based request validation middleware
• Service Layer - Separation of business logic
• Request ID Tracking - UUID-based request tracing
• Graceful Shutdown - Clean server shutdown handling
• API Versioning - /api/v1 route structure
• Constants File - HTTP status codes and error messages
• Type Definitions - TypeScript interfaces and types

Database Support

• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• SQLite
• MongoDB
• None (no database)

ORM Options

• Prisma - Type-safe database client with migrations
• Drizzle - Lightweight TypeScript ORM
• None (raw queries)

Authentication

• JWT - JSON Web Token authentication
• Session - Session-based authentication with Redis
• None (no auth)

Add-ons

• Rate Limiting - Express rate limiter middleware
• Redis Caching - Singleton-based Redis client with helper methods
• GitHub Actions - CI/CD workflow configuration

Generated Project Structure

my-app/
├── src/
│   ├── config/
│   │   ├── env.ts          # Environment validation (Zod)
│   │   └── constants.ts    # HTTP status codes, error messages
│   ├── db/
│   │   └── index.ts        # Database client
│   ├── errors/
│   │   └── index.ts        # All error classes
│   ├── middleware/
│   │   ├── auth.ts         # Authentication middleware
│   │   ├── errorHandler.ts # Global error handler
│   │   ├── asyncHandler.ts # Async wrapper
│   │   ├── validate.ts     # Request validation
│   │   ├── requestId.ts    # Request ID tracking
│   │   └── rateLimiter.ts  # Rate limiting
│   ├── routes/
│   │   └── v1/
│   │       ├── index.ts    # Route aggregator
│   │       ├── health.ts   # Health check endpoint
│   │       └── auth.ts     # Auth routes
│   ├── services/
│   │   └── auth.service.ts # Auth business logic
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── logger.ts       # Pino logger
│   │   ├── response.ts     # Response helpers
│   │   └── redis.ts        # Redis singleton client
│   ├── app.ts              # Express app setup
│   └── index.ts            # Server entry point
├── prisma/
│   └── schema.prisma       # Prisma schema (if selected)
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── ci.yml          # GitHub Actions CI
├── .env
├── .gitignore
├── .prettierrc
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── eslint.config.js
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── README.md

Error Classes

The generated project includes comprehensive error classes:

| Error Class | Status Code | Use Case | |-------------|-------------|----------| | BadRequestError | 400 | Invalid request syntax | | ValidationError | 400 | Request validation failed | | UnauthorizedError | 401 | Missing/invalid authentication | | InvalidCredentialsError | 401 | Wrong email/password | | TokenExpiredError | 401 | JWT token expired | | InvalidTokenError | 401 | Malformed token | | ForbiddenError | 403 | Access denied | | InsufficientPermissionsError | 403 | Missing permissions | | NotFoundError | 404 | Resource not found | | UserNotFoundError | 404 | User doesn't exist | | ResourceNotFoundError | 404 | Generic resource not found | | MethodNotAllowedError | 405 | HTTP method not supported | | ConflictError | 409 | Resource conflict | | DuplicateError | 409 | Duplicate entry | | EmailAlreadyExistsError | 409 | Email taken | | GoneError | 410 | Resource no longer available | | PayloadTooLargeError | 413 | Request body too large | | UnsupportedMediaTypeError | 415 | Content type not supported | | UnprocessableEntityError | 422 | Semantic errors | | TooManyRequestsError | 429 | Rate limit exceeded | | InternalServerError | 500 | Unexpected server error | | DatabaseError | 500 | Database operation failed | | ExternalServiceError | 500 | Third-party service error | | NotImplementedError | 501 | Feature not implemented | | BadGatewayError | 502 | Upstream server error | | ServiceUnavailableError | 503 | Server temporarily down | | GatewayTimeoutError | 504 | Upstream timeout |

Redis Client

The generated Redis client is a singleton with built-in helper methods:

import { redis } from './utils/redis';

// Connect to Redis
await redis.connect();

// Cache operations
await redis.set('user:1', { name: 'John' }, 3600); // with TTL
const user = await redis.get<User>('user:1');
await redis.del('user:1');

// Check connection
const isHealthy = await redis.ping();

// Disconnect
await redis.disconnect();

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0

License

MIT