express-route-audit

Audit declared Express routes with usage data.

Why

When maintaining an application, it can be useful to know what routes and methods are being used. Let the application gather usage statistics, then generate a report that lists each unique route, method and count for that combination.

How

Install the module.

npm install express-route-audit

Add to your Express application.

const ERA = require('express-route-audit');

Choose a storage backend. For transient in-memory storage that will not persist across restarts / processes, use ERAMemory.

const ERAMemory = require('express-route-audit/storage/ERAMemory');

Initialize ERA with in-memory storage.

const era = new ERA(new ERAMemory()); 

Before any routing occurs, include a middleware that upon completed requests tallies the number of requests to a given route and method.

// express-route-audit middleware; counts routed requests.
app.use((...args) => era.middleware(...args));

Then, given an Express app, a report can be generated on usage.

// Report on route usage.
app.get('/report', (request, response, next) => era.report(app)
  .then(report => response.json(report))
  .catch(error => next(error)));

The output is compatible with json2csv if JSON isn't convenient.

Example

git clone https://github.com/fluxsauce/express-route-audit.git
cd express-route-audit
npm install
node ./example.js

Then, in a new terminal:

# Get the report; the count for the report route will be 0 as it only increments after the request is complete. 
» curl http://localhost:3000/report
[{"path":"/ping","method":"GET","count":0},{"path":"/hello/:target","method":"GET","count":0},{"path":"/hello","method":"POST","count":0},{"path":"/report","method":"GET","count":0},{"path":"/report","method":"DELETE","count":0}]% 

Formatted:

[  
   {  
      "path":"/ping",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":0
   },
   {  
      "path":"/hello/:target",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":0
   },
   {  
      "path":"/hello",
      "method":"POST",
      "count":0
   },
   {  
      "path":"/report",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":0
   },
   {  
      "path":"/report",
      "method":"DELETE",
      "count":0
   }
]
 

# Make some requests to populate the stats. 
» curl http://localhost:3000/ping
PONG%                                                                                                     
» curl http://localhost:3000/ping
PONG%
» curl http://localhost:3000/ping
PONG%
» curl http://localhost:3000/hello/world
world%
» curl -d "foo=bar&fizz=buzz" -X POST http://localhost:3000/hello
{"foo":"bar","fizz":"buzz"}%
» curl http://localhost:3000/fail
Not Found%
» curl http://localhost:3000/report
[{"path":"/ping","method":"GET","count":3},{"path":"/hello/:target","method":"GET","count":1},{"path":"/hello","method":"POST","count":1},{"path":"/report","method":"GET","count":0},{"path":"/report","method":"DELETE","count":0}]%
# Delete the report. 
» curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/report
» 

Formatted:

[  
   {  
      "path":"/ping",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":3
   },
   {  
      "path":"/hello/:target",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":1
   },
   {  
      "path":"/hello",
      "method":"POST",
      "count":1
   },
   {  
      "path":"/report",
      "method":"GET",
      "count":0
   },
   {  
      "path":"/report",
      "method":"DELETE",
      "count":0
   }
]

Example server output:

» node ./example.js 
listening on 3000
2019-03-18T16:50:17.342Z 'GET' '/report'
2019-03-18T16:50:21.567Z 'GET' '/ping'
2019-03-18T16:50:22.104Z 'GET' '/ping'
2019-03-18T16:50:22.626Z 'GET' '/ping'
2019-03-18T16:50:26.241Z 'GET' '/hello/world'
2019-03-18T16:50:31.809Z 'POST' '/hello'
2019-03-18T16:50:36.978Z 'GET' '/fail'
2019-03-18T16:50:42.197Z 'GET' '/report'
2019-03-18T16:50:47.603Z 'DELETE' '/report'

Redis

The storage/ERARedis backend takes two arguments; a fully configured Redis client and a key prefix. Tested with ioredis.

Example:

// Initialize ERA with Redis storage.
const era = new ERA(new ERARedis(redis, 'era::'));