Express-Genix

A production-grade CLI tool that generates Express.js applications with best-in-class defaults. Scaffold a complete REST API in seconds — with TypeScript, authentication, Prisma/Mongoose/Sequelize, Docker, CI/CD, and more.

Features

Languages & ORMs

• JavaScript or TypeScript
• MongoDB (Mongoose), PostgreSQL (Sequelize), PostgreSQL (Prisma), or no database
• Sequelize CLI migrations for PostgreSQL, Prisma migrations ready out of the box

Security & Auth

• JWT access + refresh tokens with token blacklist logout
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) — admin, moderator, user roles with permission system
• Admin panel routes for user management (list, view, update roles, delete)
• Password reset flow (forgot-password / reset-password with crypto tokens)
• Optional Redis-backed blacklist for production multi-instance deployments
• Zod request validation with pre-built schemas (register, login, reset, etc.)
• bcrypt password hashing, input sanitization (validator)
• Helmet, CORS, environment validation on startup
• Auto-generated cryptographically secure JWT secrets
• Soft deletes with restore capability

API & Documentation

• Swagger UI + swagger-jsdoc annotation-based docs with example request/response bodies
• GraphQL (Apollo Server) with type definitions and resolvers
• Consistent { success, data, meta } response envelope
• API versioning (/api/v1/ prefix)
• Paginated list endpoints
• Request ID / correlation tracking
• Response caching middleware (Redis-backed, configurable TTL)

Services & Infrastructure

• Email service (Nodemailer) with welcome and password reset emails
• File uploads (Multer) with type filtering and size limits
• Background jobs (BullMQ) with Redis-backed queues and workers
• Prometheus metrics (/metrics endpoint with prom-client)
• Audit logging middleware with request tracking and sensitive field redaction

AI & Agent Integration

• MCP Server — exposes your API as tools for AI agents (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Copilot)
• LangChain / LangGraph AI service with chat, streaming (SSE), prompt chains, and ReAct agent
• Provider-agnostic: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Ollama (local)
• AI-powered CLI: express-genix ai "describe your app" generates a project from natural language
• Coda VS Code extension — in-editor AI chat for Express Genix projects (auto-prompted on AI/MCP projects)

Developer Experience

• Interactive prompts — pick language, database, features via checkbox
• Winston or Pino logger (you choose)
• ESLint (Airbnb) + Prettier pre-configured
• Jest + Supertest with coverage
• Rate limiting with configurable window/max

Production Ready

• Docker & Docker Compose (multi-stage, non-root user)
• GitHub Actions CI/CD (matrix testing, DB services)
• Node.js clustering with graceful shutdown
• Rollback on generation failure
• Git init + initial commit

Post-Init

• express-genix add <feature> — bolt on auth, websocket, docker, cicd, or prisma to an existing project

Quick Start

Install globally

npm install -g express-genix

Or use with npx:

npx express-genix init

Create a project

express-genix init

You'll be prompted for:

1. Project name
2. Language — JavaScript or TypeScript
3. Database — MongoDB, PostgreSQL (Sequelize), PostgreSQL (Prisma), or None
4. Features — Auth, Rate Limiting, Swagger, Redis, Docker, CI/CD, WebSocket, Request ID, Email, File Uploads, Soft Deletes, Audit Logging, Prometheus Metrics, API Versioning, Background Jobs, GraphQL, MCP Server, AI/LLM Service
5. Logger — Winston or Pino
6. AI Provider (if AI selected) — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or Ollama (local)

The CLI generates your project, installs dependencies, formats code, and creates an initial git commit.

Run it

cd my-express-app
npm run dev

• API: http://localhost:3000/api
• Swagger Docs: http://localhost:3000/api-docs
• Health Check: http://localhost:3000/health

Add features to an existing project

cd my-express-app
express-genix add docker      # Adds Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml, .dockerignore
express-genix add cicd        # Adds GitHub Actions CI workflow
express-genix add auth        # Adds JWT auth, controllers, routes, middleware
express-genix add websocket   # Adds Socket.io setup
express-genix add prisma      # Adds Prisma schema, client config, migrations

Generate from natural language (AI)

Requires OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your environment.

express-genix ai "a task manager API with auth, real-time updates, and email notifications"

The CLI interprets your description, maps it to features, shows the config for confirmation, then generates the project.

Generated Project Structure

my-express-app/
├── src/
│   ├── config/          # Database, Swagger, WebSocket, queue configuration
│   ├── controllers/     # Route handlers (auth, user, admin, example)
│   ├── graphql/         # GraphQL type definitions & resolvers (if selected)
│   ├── jobs/            # BullMQ background workers (if selected)
│   ├── mcp/             # MCP server for AI agent tools (if selected)
│   ├── agents/          # LangGraph ReAct agent (if selected)
│   ├── middleware/      # Auth, RBAC, validation, error handling, uploads, metrics, audit log
│   ├── models/          # Database models (Mongoose/Sequelize/Prisma)
│   ├── routes/          # API route definitions with Swagger annotations
│   ├── services/        # Business logic layer (auth, user, email)
│   ├── utils/           # Logger, errors, response helpers, validators
│   ├── app.js|ts        # Express app setup
│   └── server.js|ts     # Server + clustering + WebSocket + workers
├── tests/               # Jest + Supertest suites
├── prisma/              # Prisma schema (if selected)
├── migrations/          # Sequelize migrations (if PostgreSQL + Sequelize)
├── seeders/             # Sequelize seeders (if PostgreSQL + Sequelize)
├── uploads/             # File upload directory (if selected)
├── mcp.json             # MCP client config for Claude Desktop (if selected)
├── .github/workflows/   # CI/CD pipeline (if selected)
├── .env                 # Auto-generated environment config
├── .env.example         # Template for team sharing
├── Dockerfile           # Multi-stage Docker build (if selected)
├── docker-compose.yml   # Full stack compose (if selected)
└── package.json

API Endpoints (with database + auth)

When API versioning is enabled, all /api/* routes become /api/v1/*.

Authentication

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | POST | /api/auth/register | Register a new user | | POST | /api/auth/login | Login (returns access + refresh tokens) | | POST | /api/auth/refresh | Refresh access token | | POST | /api/auth/logout | Logout (blacklists token) | | POST | /api/auth/forgot-password | Request password reset email | | POST | /api/auth/reset-password | Reset password with token |

Users (protected)

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | GET | /api/users/profile | Get current user | | PUT | /api/users/profile | Update profile | | DELETE | /api/users/profile | Delete account (soft delete if enabled) |

Admin (RBAC — admin role required)

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | GET | /api/admin/users | List all users (paginated) | | GET | /api/admin/users/:id | Get user by ID | | PUT | /api/admin/users/:id/role | Update user role | | DELETE | /api/admin/users/:id | Delete user | | POST | /api/admin/users/:id/restore | Restore soft-deleted user |

File Uploads

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | POST | /api/uploads/single | Upload a single file | | POST | /api/uploads/multiple | Upload multiple files (max 10) |

Background Jobs (BullMQ)

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | POST | /api/jobs | Dispatch a background job | | GET | /api/jobs/:id | Get job status |

Observability & Health

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | GET | /health | Health check (uptime, DB, Redis, memory) | | GET | /metrics | Prometheus metrics (prom-client) | | GET | /graphql | GraphQL Playground (Apollo Server) |

AI / LLM (LangChain)

When you select the AI / LLM Service feature, you'll be asked to pick a provider:

| Provider | Models | API Key Required | |----------|--------|------------------| | OpenAI | GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini | OPENAI_API_KEY | | Anthropic | Claude Sonnet, Claude Opus | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | | Google Gemini | Gemini 2.0 Flash | GOOGLE_API_KEY | | Ollama | Llama 3, Mistral, etc. | None (runs locally) |

The CLI generates your .env with the correct provider, model, and API key variable — just fill in your key and run npm run dev.

For Ollama, install it from ollama.com and pull a model:

ollama pull llama3

Endpoints:

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | POST | /api/ai/chat | Chat with AI (complete response) | | POST | /api/ai/stream | Stream AI response (SSE) | | POST | /api/ai/chain | Run a prompt template chain | | POST | /api/ai/agent | Run LangGraph ReAct agent with tools |

Available Scripts

npm run dev          # Development server with auto-reload
npm start            # Production server with clustering
npm test             # Run tests with coverage
npm run lint         # Check ESLint
npm run lint:fix     # Auto-fix ESLint issues
npm run format       # Format with Prettier
npm run format:check # Verify formatting
npm run build        # Compile TypeScript (TS projects only)
npm run db:migrate   # Run Sequelize migrations (PostgreSQL)
npm run db:migrate:undo  # Undo last migration
npm run prisma:migrate   # Run Prisma migrations
npm run prisma:studio    # Open Prisma Studio

CLI Options

express-genix init --skip-install   # Skip npm install (useful for CI)
express-genix init --skip-cleanup   # Skip auto-formatting (for debugging)
express-genix add <feature>         # Add feature to existing project
express-genix ai "<description>"    # Generate project from natural language

Environment Variables

Generated .env includes auto-generated JWT secrets:

| Variable | Description | Default | |----------|-------------|---------| | NODE_ENV | Environment | development | | PORT | Server port | 3000 | | CORS_ORIGIN | Allowed origins | * | | JWT_SECRET | Access token secret (auto-generated) | — | | JWT_REFRESH_SECRET | Refresh token secret (auto-generated) | — | | MONGO_URI / DATABASE_URL | Database connection string | — | | REDIS_URL | Redis URL (token blacklist, caching, BullMQ) | redis://localhost:6379 | | RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_MS | Rate limit window (ms) | 900000 | | RATE_LIMIT_MAX | Max requests per window | 100 | | LOG_LEVEL | Logging level | info | | SMTP_HOST | SMTP server host (email service) | — | | SMTP_PORT | SMTP server port | 587 | | SMTP_USER | SMTP username | — | | SMTP_PASS | SMTP password | — | | EMAIL_FROM | Default sender address | — | | UPLOAD_MAX_SIZE | Max file upload size in bytes | 5242880 (5 MB) | | UPLOAD_DIR | Upload destination directory | uploads | | MCP_SERVER_NAME | MCP server display name | project name | | AI_PROVIDER | LLM provider (set by CLI) | openai | | AI_MODEL | Model name (set by CLI based on provider) | varies | | AI_TEMPERATURE | Sampling temperature | 0.7 | | AI_MAX_TOKENS | Max response tokens | 2048 | | OPENAI_API_KEY | OpenAI API key (if using OpenAI) | — | | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | Anthropic API key (if using Anthropic) | — | | OLLAMA_BASE_URL | Ollama server URL (if using Ollama) | http://localhost:11434 |

Docker

docker-compose up --build

The generated docker-compose.yml includes services for your app and its dependencies (MongoDB/PostgreSQL, Redis) with health checks, volumes, and a shared network. The Dockerfile uses multi-stage builds, runs as a non-root user, and only copies production dependencies.

Coda VS Code Extension

When you select AI or MCP features, the CLI prompts you to install the Coda VS Code extension — an in-editor AI assistant that talks to your running project's AI endpoints.

What it does

• Sidebar chat — a chat panel in the VS Code activity bar that streams responses from your project's /ai/chat and /ai/stream endpoints
• @coda in Copilot Chat — type @coda in the native Copilot Chat to interact with your project's AI agent
• Agent mode — toggle between Chat (streaming) and Agent (LangGraph tool-calling) modes
• Auto-detection — activates automatically when it detects an Express Genix project
• Code actions — copy or insert code blocks from AI responses directly into your editor

Install manually

# From VS Code Marketplace
code --install-extension express-genix.coda-ai

Or search "Coda AI" in the VS Code Extensions panel.

Configuration

In VS Code Settings (search "Coda"):

| Setting | Default | Description | |---------|---------|-------------| | coda.provider | openai | AI provider (openai, anthropic, gemini, ollama) | | coda.model | (provider default) | Model override | | coda.systemPrompt | Coding assistant prompt | Default system prompt |

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide for details.

License

MIT © Joshua Maeba Nyamasege

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.