Feathers.js— Building REST application (A framework on Node.js)

→ Feathers.js is a real-time, micro-service web framework for NodeJS that gives you control over your data via RESTful resources, sockets and flexible plug-ins.

→ The application can be created in either JavaScript or TypeScript

→ Feathers can interact with any backend technology, supports over a dozen databases and works with any frontend technology like React, VueJS, Angular, React Native, Android or iOS.

Important Features of FeathersJS:

1. FeathersJS is developed as a micro-service framework for NodeJS and can also be a web application
2. Supports both Relational and Non-Relational Databases
3. Simplifies Real-Time Applications Development
4. Simplifies Development of Service-Oriented Apps
5. Provides REST APIs Automatically
6. Supports Authentication
7. Accelerates Error Handling

What we will understand:

By the end of this article, you will have a good understanding of:

a. Creating authentication using JWT

b. CRUD operations using Feathers.js framework of Node

c. Insomnia

Installation:

npm install @feathersjs/feathers --save
npm install -g @feathersjs/cli

→ Once you have feathers installed open your terminal or command prompt and enter below command

feathers --help

→ We can see a bunch of commands feathers provides — app, authentication, connection, hook, middleware, service, plugin

What we will develop:

Backend: Feathers is a Node.js framework and will handle most backend JS development

Frontend: We will use Insomnia/Postman. We can use any frontend JS framework like React.js, Angular.js or Vue.js

Database: NeDB, The speciality of this database it stores data in memory. We can also use any relational DB like Postgres, MongoDB and no-SQL like MongoDB.

Create New Application:

feathers g app

→ In the terminal it will ask some questions — create via JavaScript or TypeScript: Let us choose JavaScript for this application

→ We will answer the series of questions based on the project requirement. Chose the same as below

→ There are multiple authentication types feature available — Username + Password, Auth0, Google, Facebook, Twitter and GitHub.

Use the space button to select more than one authentication method.

We can choose as per client requirements. Keeping it simple we will choose Username + Password

→ Choose DB as NeDB. Similarly based on the requirement we chose any database

→ Finally, it will install the boilerplate as per our configurations

Directory Structure:

→ For starting the application using any one of the below commands:

yarn dev
npm run dev

→ An application opens in http://localhost:3030

Insomnia:

→ We will use Insomnia for testing our REST APIs. Download here.

→ This is similar to Postman. I wanted to know more about this API client as well. Hence used this one 😄

→ We will set the base URL in the environment variable for this collection.

→ Open Cmd + E (Mac) or Ctrl + E (Windows) to set base variables. This is the key-value setting

baseUrl: 'http://localhost:3030'

→ Let us create our first route:

→ On writing baseUrl will load value from the environment variable

→ We got some responses. Yes, it is 404 for now 😄.

→ Our Insomnia is working. Let us create some meaningful routes.

→ We will be happy to know Feathers have auto-created REST functionality. We will just use the right routes and get or post our data.

Authentication:

→ Feathers use JWT token concept for creating sessions.

→ We are using Username + local authentication (its type is local). As per requirement, there can be more authentication types.

→ We will call the user endpoint.

NOTE: Calling any endpoint will call user hooks first

1. Register (Create operation):

TYPE: POST

URL: http://3030/users

Request JSON body:

{
 "name":"Amir Mustafa",
 "email": "amir.mustafa@gmail.com",
 "password": "amir@123"
}

Response:

{
  "name": "Amir Mustafa",
  "email": "amir.mustafa@gmail.com",
  "_id": "vUD8zJdDQQsCBLsQ"
}

Entry 2:

→ The data is saved in NeDB in memory (i.e. in a data/* directory). For register in data/users.db file

2. Login:

We need to pass the below details in the Insomnia API Client.

TYPE: POST

URL: http://localhost:3030/authentication

Request JSON body:

{
  "email": "raj.khanna@gmail.com",
  "password": "raj@123",
  "strategy": "local"
}

Response:

{
  "accessToken": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6ImFjY2VzcyJ9.eyJpYXQiOjE2MzMxMTEwNjcsImV4cCI6MTYzMzE5NzQ2NywiYXVkIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly95b3VyZG9tYWluLmNvbSIsImlzcyI6ImZlYXRoZXJzIiwic3ViIjoiQTJjWG1SUXV1THRYcnh0aSIsImp0aSI6IjliNGIxMzhmLWMxODEtNDY4Ni04MzViLTQyNzU5Y2JiMDhkZiJ9.k_Uazv4-NLz5WiuziOlt9D8yeUeCLG5fhc2RzmTVN1Q",
  "authentication": {
    "strategy": "local",
    "accessToken": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6ImFjY2VzcyJ9.eyJpYXQiOjE2MzMxMTEwNjcsImV4cCI6MTYzMzE5NzQ2NywiYXVkIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly95b3VyZG9tYWluLmNvbSIsImlzcyI6ImZlYXRoZXJzIiwic3ViIjoiQTJjWG1SUXV1THRYcnh0aSIsImp0aSI6IjliNGIxMzhmLWMxODEtNDY4Ni04MzViLTQyNzU5Y2JiMDhkZiJ9.k_Uazv4-NLz5WiuziOlt9D8yeUeCLG5fhc2RzmTVN1Q",
    "payload": {
      "iat": 1633111067,
      "exp": 1633197467,
      "aud": "https://yourdomain.com",
      "iss": "feathers",
      "sub": "A2cXmRQuuLtXrxti",
      "jti": "9b4b138f-c181-4686-835b-42759cbb08df"
    }
  },
  "user": {
    "name": "Amir Mustafa",
    "email": "amir.mustafa@gmail.com",
    "_id": "A2cXmRQuuLtXrxti"
  }
}

→ We successfully got the login response 🙂

CRUD Operation:

→ CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update and Delete operation.

→ In all the routes, the accessToken received from a login is a must that is auto handled from feathers

→ Let us add this in environment variables:

→ We will set tokens in the environment variable for this collection.

Open Cmd + E (Mac) or Ctrl + E (Windows) to set base variables. This is the key-value setting

→ Now for CRUD, let us create a new service vehicle in the same application.

→ To create a new service we use the below command:

feathers g service

→ We will follow the same step that we did at the time of application creation with the only difference of name (vehicles) and path (/vehicles) (refer to above screenshot).

→ Let us check the directory structure in the app:

→ REST code is again auto handled. Let us go to insomnia and executes our routes

1. Create Vehicles:

Let us create a new directory for Vehicles service where we will keep all the vehicles routes

TYPE: POST

URL: http://localhost:3000/vehicles

Request:

{
 "brand": "TATA",
 "model": "Grand i10",
 "description": "Another success TATA product",
 "price": 1500000
}

Chose Auth Type: Bearer token

Response:

{
  "brand": "TATA",
  "model": "Grand i10",
  "description": "Another success TATA product",
  "price": 1500000,
  "_id": "W05so7ulQWO3RCmG"
}

and the data is inserted

Entry 2:

Entry 3:

→ All the data is store in NeDB memory. Let us check in code

2. Read Vehicles:

→ We can read all the inserted data in vehicles.

→ This can either be getting full data or filtered data based on parameter

A. Read All Data

TYPE: GET

URL: http://localhost:3030/vehicles

Request: No Request call for GET Request

Response:

{
  "total": 4,
  "limit": 10,
  "skip": 0,
  "data": [
    {
      "brand": "Tesla",
      "model": "X",
      "description": "Awesome electric car",
      "price": 1000000,
      "_id": "EJP1d7vnKm5RmcFZ"
    },
    {
      "brand": "TATA",
      "model": "Grand i10",
      "description": "Another success TATA product",
      "price": 1500000,
      "_id": "IiVncDRAXcNAKCD9"
    },
    {
      "brand": "TATA",
      "model": "i20",
      "description": "Another success TATA product",
      "price": 1500000,
      "_id": "UT3Fn2rXqsVQ3DEN"
    },
    {
      "brand": "Tesla",
      "model": "Mahindra",
      "description": "Great Electric Car",
      "price": 2500000,
      "_id": "ZiJRcD0U3EHehryc"
    }
  ]
}

→ We also get auto pagination handled data (see config/default.json).

→ There will be no body data passed for this. Passing token is must as Auth: Bearer token

B. Read Filtered Data:

TYPE: GET

URL: http://localhost:3030/vehicles?brand=<filter_parameter>

Eg: http://localhost:3030/vehicles?brand=TATA

Request: No Request call for GET Request

Response:

{
  "total": 2,
  "limit": 10,
  "skip": 0,
  "data": [
    {
      "brand": "TATA",
      "model": "Grand i10",
      "description": "Another success TATA product",
      "price": 1500000,
      "_id": "IiVncDRAXcNAKCD9"
    },
    {
      "brand": "TATA",
      "model": "i20",
      "description": "Another success TATA product",
      "price": 1500000,
      "_id": "UT3Fn2rXqsVQ3DEN"
    }
  ]
}

3. Update Vehicles:

→ You can just go to the NeDB file (i.e. data/vehicles.db)and update the data there

→ Update your data. Restart your Node server (i.e. yarn dev). All done

yarn dev or
npm run dev

After update:

→ With Read operation, we can see data is updated.

4. Delete Operation:

→ We need to go to the NeDB file of service (i.e. data/vehicles.db) and delete the required data as shown below screenshot.

→ Restart the node server

yarn dev or
npm run dev

Code Base :

GitHub - AmirMustafa/feathers-REST-API: Creating REST API using Feathers.js (framework built on top…

Closing Thoughts:

We have created a secured REST application in very little time. Feathers saved us the work of a day or two. It supports multiple databases and the front end.

Other than REST, there are more features to feathers like sockets, multiple SSO authentication like Facebook, GitHub, etc.

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