Building a RESTful API with Node.js

Learn how to create a scalable RESTful API using Node.js, Express, and MongoDB. Includes authentication, error handling, and best practices.

RESTful APIs are the standard for modern web services. This guide walks through building a production-ready API from scratch.

What We'll Cover:

• Setting up Express.js with proper middleware
• Implementing JWT authentication
• Database design with MongoDB and Mongoose
• Error handling and validation
• Rate limiting and security best practices

Getting Started

First, let's set up our project structure:

mkdir my-api
cd my-api
npm init -y
npm install express mongoose jsonwebtoken bcryptjs

Example Route Handler

// Example route handler
app.get('/api/users/:id', authenticate, async (req, res) => {
    try {
        const user = await User.findById(req.params.id);
        res.json(user);
    } catch (error) {
        res.status(500).json({ error: error.message });
    }
});

Authentication Strategy

For authentication, we'll use JSON Web Tokens (JWT) which provide a stateless authentication mechanism that's perfect for RESTful APIs.

Database Design

A well-designed database schema is crucial for API performance. We'll use MongoDB with Mongoose for schema validation and relationship management.