1. Building a Project with NodeJs, Typescript, Express, GraphQL and MongoDB
Creating Node project with Express, MongoDB, Typescript & GraphQL involves several steps. Lets discuss them in detail as follows:
Prerequisites:
Before getting into the steps to create a node project, let’s make sure the system is installed with node , VS Code, and Mongo DB softwares.
Step 1 : Create the server folder and navigate into it.
mkdir server
cd server
Step 2: Initialize the project
yarn init -y
Step-3 : Install all packages with typescript dependencies
yarn add express graphql express-graphql mongoose dotenv mongodb cors
yarn add typescript ts-node @types/node @types/express @types/graphql @types/mongoose @types/dotenv @types/mongodb -D
Step 4: Setup config.ts file in the project root folder:
{
“compilerOptions”: {
“target”: “ES6”,
“module”: “commonjs”,
“strict”: true,
“esModuleInterop”: true,
“skipLibCheck”: true,
“forceConsistentCasingInFileNames”: true,
“outDir”: “./dist”,
“rootDir”: “./src”
},
“include”: [“src”],
“exclude”: [“node_modules”]
}
Step 5: Setup .env file in the project root folder
MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/mydatabase
PORT=4000
Step 6: Create folders & files under the project root
mkdir src
touch src/index.ts src/database.ts src/schema.ts src/models/User.ts
Step 7: create database.ts file for DB connection
import express from 'express';
import dotenv from 'dotenv';
import connectDB from './database';
dotenv.config();
const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 4000;
connectDB();
app.listen(port, () => {
console.log(`Server is running at http://localhost:${port}/graphql`);
});
Step 8: Update package.json
"scripts": {
“start”: “nodemon –exec ts-node src/index.ts”,
“build”: “tsc”,
“test”: “jest”
},
Step 9: Create models, schemas, resolvers and update them in index.ts file:
import express from “express”;
import dotenv from “dotenv”;
import connectDB from “./databse”;
import { ApolloServer } from “apollo-server-express”;
import usertypeDefs from “./schema/userschema”;
import userresolvers from “./resolvers/userResolvers”;
import UserModel from “./models/usermodel”;
dotenv.config();
connectDB();
const startServer = async () => {
const app = express();
const server = new ApolloServer({
typeDefs: [usertypeDefs],
resolvers: [userresolvers],
context: {
UserModel,
},
});
await server.start();
server.applyMiddleware({ app });
var PORT = process.env.PORT;
app.listen(PORT, () => {
console.log(`Server running at http://localhost:${PORT}`);
});
};
startServer();
Step 10: Run the project
yarn start
Hence, the project gets started and we could see the mongodb connection and server running on port in the console message.
