A quick and very simple RESTful API Server that uses MongoDB and comes with sample data. You can be up and running in a few minutes. This will work well for people who need a RESTful API locally for development and do not always have access to bandwidth. More information can be found here.

Express Restify Mongoose

Babel

Quick Start - Assuming you have MongoDB installed.

Installing MongoDB

Adding Your Own Schema

Available Endpoints

Importing Sample Data

Interaction

Add JWT

If you have not already installed Mongo. You can find installs here:

MongoDB Site

If you are running Windows assure that you have the following environment variable: PATH=%PATH%;C:/Program Files/MongoDB/Server/3.2/bin/

Note: The path may vary depending on the current Mongo version.

You will need to set a Path variable in you .bash_profile in order to start Mongo from the command line.

1. From the command line it is easier to locate your Mongo path for copy paste. Type: find / -name 'mongod'.
2. Look for the path that ends with bin/mongod.
3. Replace the path here with the path you just copied:

echo "PATH=/your/path/here/bin/:$PATH" >> ~/.bash_profile
. ~/.bash_profile

Below I will show a brief example of how to add additional models to your schema. I have created an example schema for users. Feel free to skip to step 3 if you are not looking to add anything else.

Create a mongoose model and schema in the server/models folder to represent the JSON structure you want to interact with.

Example Usage users.js:

import mongoose from 'mongoose';

const userModel = mongoose.model('user', new mongoose.Schema({
  email: { type: String, index: true },
  username: { type: String, required: true },
  firstName: { type: String },
  lastName: { type: String },
  permissions: {
    admin: { type: Boolean }
  }
}));

export default userModel

Import your model into server/server.js and onto step 3.

Serve the model in the server/server.js file.

restify.serve(router, userModel);

Modify the config file here: server/config.js

const config = {
    'database': 'test', // Whatever you would like to name your database.
    'port': 3000,
    'host': 'mongoDB://localhost:27017/'
};

Don't forget to install packages:

npm install

Starting MongoDB and the Server:

Mac: npm run start-mac
Windows: npm run start-win

 GET http://localhost/api/v1/user/count
 GET http://localhost/api/v1/user
 POST http://localhost/api/v1/user
 DELETE http://localhost/api/v1/user

 GET http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id
 GET http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id/shallow
 PUT http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id
 POST http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id
 PATCH http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id
 DELETE http://localhost/api/v1/user/:id

If you would like to import sample data.

Assure that MongoDB is running, or you have run the npm run mongo-mac in another terminal window.

From the command line run the following:

mongoimport --db test --collection users --drop --file sampleData.json --jsonArray

Note: replace the word test in the string above with whatever you have named your database.

To turn on JWT set jwt in the config file to true.

After JWT is turned on, you will need to get a token by authenticating via the post route: /api/v1/login. When a valid username and password string is sent the JSON object that is returned will contain the authentication token. To use this token to call other end-points you will need to pass the following information in the header.

Authorization: Bearer <Token returned during authentication.>

Need help building or interacting with your API? I highly suggest looking at Postman