Orator

An unopinionated API server abstraction for REST and IPC services

Orator is not an attempt to reinvent the wheel. Nor do we want to make a car with five of them. Orator is a thin abstraction layer over service server implementations (like Restify), providing a consistent interface for building API servers. You can spin up a web server in a single simple line, and configuration is managed through a consistent JSON format -- so as you begin to have 10 or 15 or 5,000 microservices, you don't have a bunch of boilerplate API server code laying around.

Features

• Unopinionated Design - Wraps any service server implementation through a consistent interface
• REST and IPC - Full HTTP server support via Restify, or in-process IPC for testing and microservice composition
• Lifecycle Management - Before/After hooks for initialization and service start phases
• Static File Serving - Built-in static file serving with subdomain-based folder routing
• Fable Integration - First-class service provider in the Fable ecosystem with logging and configuration
• Browser & Node.js - Works in both environments with automatic service server selection

Quick Start

const libFable = require('fable');
const libOrator = require('orator');
const libOratorServiceServerRestify = require('orator-serviceserver-restify');

const _Fable = new libFable({
	Product: 'MyAPIServer',
	ProductVersion: '1.0.0',
	ServicePort: 8080
});

_Fable.serviceManager.addServiceType('Orator', libOrator);
_Fable.serviceManager.addServiceType('OratorServiceServer', libOratorServiceServerRestify);
_Fable.serviceManager.instantiateServiceProvider('Orator');
_Fable.serviceManager.instantiateServiceProvider('OratorServiceServer');

_Fable.Orator.serviceServer.get('/hello/:name',
	(pRequest, pResponse, fNext) =>
	{
		pResponse.send({ greeting: `Hello ${pRequest.params.name}!` });
		return fNext();
	});

_Fable.Orator.startService(
	() =>
	{
		console.log('Server is running on port 8080');
	});

Installation

npm install orator

Configuration

| Setting | Type | Default | Description | |---------|------|---------|-------------| | Product | string | "Unnamed_Service" | Application name identifier | | ProductVersion | string | "0.0.1" | Application version string | | ServicePort | number | 8080 | Port for the service server to listen on | | APIServerPort | number | - | Legacy alias for ServicePort (automatically migrated) | | RestifyConfiguration | object | {} | Configuration passed to Restify when using the Restify service server |

Documentation

Full documentation is available in the docs folder, or served locally:

npx docsify-cli serve docs

• Architecture - Service server abstraction design
• Getting Started - Step-by-step setup guide
• Static File Serving - Serving files from disk
• IPC Server - In-process service invocation

Related Packages

• orator-serviceserver-restify - Restify service server implementation
• orator-serviceserver-base - Abstract service server base class
• orator-static-server - Static file serving
• fable - Application services framework

License

MIT

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For details on our code of conduct, contribution process, and testing requirements, see the Retold Contributing Guide.