express-typed-rpc

WARNING! This repo is still a work in progress. README isn't finished, and this repo is still in beta. Read source code if you want to play around, and please contribute if you're interested ❤️

Simple express middleware to easily create a fully-typed JSON API over HTTP on both the server-side and client-side. This project is inspired by tRPC, but much simpler.

Crazy Simple and Easy to Use 😃

• Works out of the box with express and Typescript
• No magic or black boxes
• No code generation or build steps! Works 100% statically via Typescript's infer keyword
• No writing type specifications
• Minimal configuration
• Client included!
• Tiny codebase (~50LOC) with minimal dependencies. Written in clean, simple Typescript. Contribute or fork and make it your own.

Make Your Code More Reliable and Go Faster! 🚀

• Take advantage of Typescript and turn your runtime errors into compiler-time errors! Inputs and outputs are both fully typed.
• Easily unit-test your express handlers since they are now no longer dependent on req and res

Installation

npm i express-typed-rpc

Example Usage

server.ts

import express from 'express';
import { Router } from 'express';
import { createAPI, InferAPI } from 'express-typed-rpc';

// Define your Express router
const apiRouter = Router();

// Define your API
const api = {
    greet: (name: string, context: any): string => `Hello, ${name}!`,
    multiply: (numbers: {a: number, b: number}, context: any): number => numbers.a * numbers.b
};

// Create API using the provided function and api object
createAPI(apiRouter, api);

// Export type for use on client
export type API = InferAPI<typeof api>;

// Initialize Express application
const app = express();

// Use the router as middleware at the /api path
app.use('/api', apiRouter);

// Start the Express server
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000);

client.ts

import { client } from 'express-typed-rpc';
import { API } from '@yourorg/server' // You must publish your backend as a private repo
                                      // (Github Packages is recommended). This imports
                                      // the type only.

// Everything is now fully typed! Enjoy IDE autocompletion, validation, 
// and compile-time TypeScript errors.

const greet = async (name: string): Promise<string> => {
    return await client<API['greet']>('greet', name);
};

const multiply = async (numbers: {a: number, b: number}): Promise<number> => {
    return await client<API['multiply']>('multiply', numbers);
};

Contribution

Please contribute to this project! Issue a PR against main and request review.

• Please test your work thoroughly.
• Make sure all tests pass with appropriate coverage.

How to build locally

npm i

Running tests

npm test