node-starter-cli

node-starter-cli is an open-source command‑line tool that bootstraps a production‑ready Node.js REST API in seconds. It saves you from repetitive boilerplate—complete with authentication, JWT flows, rate limiting, and a modular folder structure.

🌟 Features

• One‑command scaffolding: Instantly generate a complete Express + MongoDB backend.
• Built‑in authentication: Email/password register & login routes with JWT + refresh‑token flows.
• Auto‑generated secrets: JWT_SECRET & REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET created for you.
• Rate limiting: Protect your endpoints with sensible defaults (100 reqs/15min per IP).
• Auth verifier: Middleware to guard protected routes.
• Custom prompts: Choose port, MongoDB base URL, and database name. Trailing slashes are handled automatically.
• Clean architecture: controllers/, services/, models/, routes/, middlewares/ folders ready to go.

🚀 Installation

You can install globally or run with npx:

1# Global install
2npm install -g node-starter-cli
3
4# Or use npx (no global install required)
5npx node-starter-cli <project-name>

💻 Usage

1# Scaffold a new project
2npx node-starter-cli my-next-api
3
4# Then navigate and start
5cd my-next-api
6npm run dev

During scaffolding, you'll be prompted for:

1. Project name (defaults to your <project-name>)
2. Port (defaults to 5000)
3. Mongo base URL (defaults to mongodb://localhost:27017/)
4. Database name (defaults to your project name)

These answers are used to configure:

• src/config/db.js connection string
• .env with PORT, DB_URL, JWT_SECRET, and REFRESH_TOKEN_SECRET

📂 Project Structure

<project-name>/
├── src/
│   ├── config/db.js
│   ├── controllers/authController.js
│   ├── middlewares/
│   │   ├── rateLimiter.js
│   │   └── authVerifier.js
│   ├── models/User.js
│   ├── routes/authRoutes.js
│   ├── services/authService.js
│   └── index.js
├── .env
├── .gitignore
├── package.json
└── README.md

📜 Built‑in Middleware

Rate Limiter (src/middlewares/rateLimiter.js)

1import rateLimit from 'express-rate-limit';
2export default rateLimit({
3  windowMs: 15 * 60 * 1000, // 15 minutes
4  max: 100,                 // limit each IP to 100 requests
5  message: { status: 429, error: 'Too many requests, try again later.' }
6});

Auth Verifier (src/middlewares/authVerifier.js)

1import jwt from 'jsonwebtoken';
2export function authVerifier(req, res, next) {
3  const token = req.headers.authorization?.split(' ')[1];
4  if (!token) return res.status(401).json({ error: 'No token provided' });
5  try {
6    req.user = jwt.verify(token, process.env.JWT_SECRET);
7    next();
8  } catch {
9    res.status(401).json({ error: 'Invalid or expired token' });
10  }
11}

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests:

1. Fork the repo
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/YourFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add YourFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/YourFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the ISC License — see the LICENSE file for details.