Overview

Create a simple REST API with zero coding in less than 30 seconds (seriously).

For developers that need a quick NodeJS backend for small projects.

No need for any coding, unless you want to opt-out of the defaults, or want to do more customization.

An OpenAPI specification is generated and enabled by default, providing interactive documentation and allowing you to generate client code from it.

Data is kept in memory, but you can also store it in a JSON file or MongoDB database.

Temba?

"Temba, at REST"

A metaphor for the declining of a gift, from the Star Trek - The Next Generation episode "Darmok".

In the fictional Tamarian language the word "Temba" means something like "gift".

What Temba does

Out of the box, Temba gives you a CRUD REST API to any resource name you can think of.

Whether you GET either /people, /movies, /pokemons, or whatever, it all returns a 200 OK with a [] JSON response. As soon as you POST a new resource, followed by a GET of that resource, the new resource will be returned. You can also DELETE, PATCH, or PUT resources by its ID.

For every resource (movies is just an example), Temba supports the following requests:

• GET /movies - Get all movies
• GET /movies/:id - Get a movie by its ID
• POST /movies - Create a new movie
• POST /movies:/id - Create a new movie specifying the ID yourself
• PATCH /movies/:id - Partially update a movie by its ID
• PUT /movies/:id - Fully replace a movie by its ID
• DELETE /movies - Delete all movies (if configured)
• DELETE /movies/:id - Delete a movie by its ID
• HEAD /movies - Get all movies, but without the response body
• HEAD /movies/:id - Get a movie by its ID, but without the response body

Supported HTTP methods

The HTTP methods that are supported are GET, POST, PATCH, PUT, DELETE, and HEAD.

On the root URI (e.g. http://localhost:8362/) only a GET request is supported, which shows you a message indicating the API is working. All other HTTP methods on the root URI return a 405 Method Not Allowed response.

JSON

Temba supports JSON only.

Request bodies sent with a POST, PATCH, and PUT requests are valid when the request body is either empty, or when it's valid formatted JSON. If you send a request with invalid formatted JSON, a 400 Bad Request response is returned.

Any valid formatted JSON is accepted and stored. If you want to validate or even change the JSON in the request bodies, check out JSON Schema request body validation and the requestInterceptor.

IDs are auto generated when creating resources, unless you specify an ID in the POST request URL.

Providing IDs in the request body of POST, PUT, or PATCH requests is not allowed and will return a 400 Bad Request response. Instead, provide the ID in the request URL. However, omitting an ID in a PUT or PATCH request URL also returns a 400 Bad Request response.

Config settings overview

Configuring Temba is optional, it already works out of the box.

Here is an example of the config settings for Temba, and how you define them:

const config = {
  allowDeleteCollection: true,
  apiPrefix: 'api',
  connectionString: 'mongodb://localhost:27017/myDatabase',
  delay: 500,
  etags: true,
  openapi: true,
  port: 4321,
  requestInterceptor: {
    get: ({ type, headers, resource, id }) => {
      // type is 'resource', 'root', 'openapi', or 'static'
      // resource and id are only present when type === 'resource'
    },
    post: ({ type, headers, resource, id, body }) => {
      // Validate, or even change the request body
    },
    put: ({ type, headers, resource, id, body }) => {
      // Validate, or even change the request body
    },
    patch: ({ type, headers, resource, id, body }) => {
      // Validate, or even change the request body
    },
    delete: ({ type, headers, resource, id }) => {
      //...
    },
  },
  resources: ['movies', 'actors'],
  responseBodyInterceptor: ({ resource, body, id }) => {
    // Change the response body before it is sent to the client
  },
  returnNullFields: false,
  schema: {
    movies: {
      post: {
        type: 'object',
        properties: {
          title: { type: 'string' },
        },
        required: ['title'],
      },
    },
  },
  staticFolder: 'build',
  webSocket: true,
}
const server = await create(config)

These are all the possible settings:

Config setting	Description	Default value
allowDeleteCollection	Whether a DELETE request on a collection is allowed to delete all items.	false
apiPrefix	See API prefix	null
connectionString	See Data persistency	null
delay	The delay, in milliseconds, after processing the request before sending the response.	0
etags	See Caching and consistency with Etags	false
openapi	Enable or disable OpenAPI, or supply your custom spec object to merge into the default spec.	true
port	The port your Temba server listens on	8362
requestInterceptor	See Intercepting requests	null
resources	See Allowing specific resources only	[]
responseBodyInterceptor	See Response body interception	null
returnNullFields	Whether fields with a null value should be returned in responses.	true
schema	See JSON Schema request body validation	null
staticFolder	See Static assets	null
webSocket	See WebSockets	false

Under the hood

Temba is built with TypeScript, Node, Vitest, Supertest, @rakered/mongo, and lowdb.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.