Articles tagged node
How to Build an Express Application Using Prisma
Prisma is an ORM (object–relational mapping) tool for Node.js using TypeScript. The software integrates with many of the most popular databases today, including MySQL, SQL Server, SQLite, and MongoDB, and emphasizes a human-readable schema with a type-safe database client. Prisma also includes other features such as migrations, seed data, and a virtual database browser. In this project, you will use Prisma to connect your Express application to a database server. You will build a schema...
The Ultimate Guide to Using Elasticsearch in Node.js
Elasticsearch is one of the most powerful and popular search engines on the market. Elasticsearch lets you search through vast amounts of data, whether you’re implementing real-time search experiences or doing in-depth data analysis. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to integrate Elasticsearch into your Node.js app. You’ll see how to connect it with the front-end and how to secure your entire API and data with Okta. You can follow along with this GitHub repository....
Build and Deploy a Node.js App to Heroku
Heroku is a platform as a service (PaaS) that supports many languages. Initially, it supported only Ruby sites but now supports various languages, including JavaScript with Node.js. Heroku also has Docker support so that you can deploy just about anything to it. This tutorial will teach you how to build a small application using the Express framework for Node.js. You will then secure that application using Okta by integrating the Okta OIDC middleware with your...
A Quick Guide to Angular and GraphQL
Over the past five years, GraphQL has established itself as the most popular alternative to REST APIs. GraphQL has several advantages over traditional REST-based services. First of all, GraphQL makes the query schema available to the clients. A client that reads the schema immediately knows what services are available on the server. On top of that, the client is able to perform a query on a subset of the data. Both of these features make...
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Session Management in Node.js
Session Management is a pretty scary term for a lot of developers. Most of the mechanics of session management are abstracted away from developers, to the point where they don’t properly learn about it until it’s necessary. Usually, this means a late night trying to figure out a vulnerability, a bug, or how to work with a new session management library. Hopefully, I can remove some of the magic behind session management in NodeJs and...
Build a secure GraphQL API with Node.js
GraphQL is a query language for APIs that provides a clear description of the data and allows clients to specify what data they need, Benefits of using GraphQL include: reduced overhead,improved performance, and reduced risk of potential errors as the API evolves. If the API enhances its functionality, existing clients won’t be affected unless they want to opt in to the new features. Clients can also obtain many resources with a single request. Typical REST...
Develop Secure Apps with WebSockets and Node.js
WebSockets is a technology for communicating between the client and the server in a web application, where an open socket creates a persistent connection between the client and the server. This method of communication works outside of the HTTP request/response paradigm that has existed since the earliest days of the internet. Since sockets don’t use HTTP they can eliminate the overhead that comes with HTTP for low latency communications. In this tutorial, you will learn...
Build a Modern API using Fastify and Node.js
Fastify is just as the name implies, fast. Not just in terms of development speed—its low overhead means the server is fast as well. When writing APIs, speed on both sides is paramount. Fastify is a web framework for Node.js that was designed for efficiency. Fastify is fully extensible with hooks, plugins, and decorators. It is schema-based, meaning you can define your response and request objects in your routes and have Fastify do the data...
Build Easy User Sync Webhooks with Okta
Okta is an identity platform focused on making authentication easy to build with minimal code, and you’ll often hear us say that by using Okta you’ll never have to build authentication again. A lot of companies benefit from using our platform, which allows them to easily prompt for multi-factor authentication (MFA) based on contextual policies, offer self-service password resets and registration, and of course authentication, including federation to enterprise identity providers and social media accounts....
Build A Secure Node.js API with KoaJS
Koa is a web framework from the makers of Express. Koa is designed to be middleware-driven and extremely lightweight. It is so lightweight that it comes without any middleware on its own. But not to fear, there are plenty of packages available for basic functionality such as routing, authentication, body parsing, and more. You can also write your own custom middleware— I’ll show you how in this tutorial. Koa prides itself on using async functions...
Build and Deploy Secure Serverless Functions with Netlify
Serverless computing, sometimes referred to as “functions as a service” (FaaS), is an on-demand approach to providing backend application services. The serverless architecture is an excellent solution for many use cases where an application needs backend services occasionally, periodically (e.g., once a day), or dynamically scaled to meet demand. In this tutorial, you will learn to build serverless functions with the JavaScript language, deploy them to Netlify, and secure them using Okta. Netlify is a...
Quickly Build Node.js Apps with Sails.js
Sails.js is an exciting MVC framework for Node.js. Recently the team released version 1.0 and today you’re going to learn how to use the framework to rapidly build a new website. The hype around Sails.js is real. As a veteran MVC developer, I was impressed with the extensibility, organization, flow, and speed Sails.js provides. The team at Sails. js has done an excellent job of abstracting the MVC portion of the codebase away from the...
Quickly Build Node.js Apps with Sails.js
Sails.js is an exciting MVC framework for Node.js. Recently the team released version 1.0 and today you’re going to learn how to use the framework to rapidly build a new website. The hype around Sails.js is real. As a veteran MVC developer, I was impressed with the extensibility, organization, flow, and speed Sails.js provides. The team at Sails. js has done an excellent job of abstracting the MVC portion of the codebase away from the...
Node.js Login with Express and OIDC
Node.js just celebrated its 11th birthday on May 27! With the state of things nows, it’s pretty crazy to think back to the massive JavaScript Renaissance boost of 2009. In case you’re not aware, the JavaScript Renaissance began in around 2004 with Ajax, increased exponentially with jQuery in the mid-2000s, and then really took off with Node.js and a plethora of early JavaScript web frameworks; including Backbone.js, Ember.js, and AngularJS. Today, I’d like to show...
Build a Weight Tracker App with Node.js and PostgreSQL
Did you make any resolutions this year? One resolution I seem to make every year is to lose weight and exercise. Sometimes I even stick to it. A good way I have found to keep on track with any resolution is to record progress. There’s something about visualizing progress that helps me stay motivated. In this tutorial, you are going to create a modern Node.js application to keep track of weight measurements. We’ll use technologies...
How to Build a Secure AWS Lambda API with Node.js and React
Serverless architecture with AWS Lambdas is quickly becoming a popular option for companies looking to deploy applications without the overhead of maintaining servers. AWS Lambda functions are event-driven and serverless—triggered to process a piece of code and return a result. AWS Lambdas can be written in most common languages today on a variety of platforms including .NET Core, Java, Go and, in the case of this post, Node.js. The example in this post uses Node.js...
Build a Secure NestJS API with Postgres
NestJS is a modern, progressive framework for building Node.js applications and APIs. NestJS is built on TypeScript, and is designed to use solid programming metaphors such as controllers and modules. Having automatic Swagger API documentation built-in is also a great feature. Postgres (or PostgreSQL), much like other relational databases, provides a way to persist and query data. It’s a powerful, open-source, object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it...
Node Microservices: From Zero to Hero
Node is one of the premier frameworks for microservice architecture today. The microservice pattern allows developers to compartmentalize individual components of a larger application infrastructure. Because each component runs independently, you can upgrade or modify components without impacting the larger application. Each component exposes an interface to external consumers who are blind to any internal logic the service does. One of the challenges of working in a microservice environment is the process of one service...
The Best Testing Tools for Node.js
Testing is an essential discipline for any non-trivial software project. With a dynamic language like JavaScript, testing is an absolute necessity. This post is on the best tools currently available for Node.js, but here’s a quick look at some of the many benefits of testing. Find bugs! Guard against future bug regressions. Document the expected functionality or behavior of software. Improve the design, quality, and maintainability of software. Refactor code with confidence. In this post,...
What's New for Node.js in 2020
In 2019, Node.js turned 10 years old, and the number of packages available on npm crossed one million. Downloads for Node.js itself continues to rise, growing 40% year over year. Another significant milestone is Node.js recently joined the OpenJS Foundation, which promises to improve project health and sustainability, as well as improve collaboration with the JavaScript community at large. As you can see, a lot has happened in a relatively short amount of time! Every...
Build A Simple Web App with Node and Postgres
Node.js boasts high performance and scalability for web, mobile, or desktop applications. It is one of the fastest-growing and best-supported javascript frameworks available today, and its microservice patterns has made it a hit for modern enterprise applications. PostgreSQL has also risen in popularity, to compete with MySql. The two technologies partner well as a foundation for modern, microservices-based applications. In this post, we will build a small application that keeps track of a To-Do List...
Get Started with Koa.js for Node Applications
Ever since JavaScript made its giant leap from frontend to backend more than 10 years ago, Express has been the go-to library for writing server-side javascript and virtually synonymous with Node.js. It was (and in many aspects it still is) a modern and simple approach backend APIs. Declarative tree-like structure of routes, native support for middleware, asynchronous request processing and a miniature memory footprint all make Express very robust for a backend. As good as...
Painless Node.js Authentication
User authentication is a critical component of just about every web application. Unfortunately, while authentication is a core part of all websites, it can still be difficult to get right. Despite the Node.js community being around for a while, there still aren’t a lot of simple, foolproof ways to authenticate users in Node.js applications. In this article I’m going to explain how to build a Node.js application that authenticates users in a best practices way....
Build a NodeJS App with TypeScript
As dynamically typed languages became prominent during the last decade, typeless (or should I say lawless?) programming became the norm for the backend as well as the frontend. Many people believe the simplicity of “just writing” code is efficient for providing a proof of concept or prototyping applications. However, as those applications grow, the typeless code used to build them often becomes incredibly convoluted and more difficult (some would say impossible) to manage. In the...
Build a Simple CRUD Application with Node and MySQL
NodeJS + Express is a popular technology stack for building APIs and backend services. Often times a backend database is required. There are several popular relational databases used in both enterprise and hobby projects. MySQL’s spike in popularity came with the rise of PHP during the early 2000s and today - more than 20 years after the initial release - it’s used on a wide array of technology stacks. In this post, you’ll learn how...
Build a Simple CRUD Application with Node and MySQL
NodeJS + Express is a popular technology stack for building APIs and backend services. Often times a backend database is required. There are several popular relational databases used in both enterprise and hobby projects. MySQL’s spike in popularity came with the rise of PHP during the early 2000s and today - more than 20 years after the initial release - it’s used on a wide array of technology stacks. In this post, you’ll learn how...
Build a Command Line Application with Node.js
Command line applications (CLI) are often the core tools for automating tasks, such as deploying production applications, running tests, building reports, migrating data, DevOps, and the list goes on and on. If you find yourself doing the same things over and over again, chances are you can automate those steps with a script and save yourself a lot of time! Node.js is a great solution for writing CLI apps. Node.js itself has built-in libraries for...
Build Simple Authentication in Express in 15 Minutes
Building web pages with user authentication can be a huge pain. You typically need to set up some sort of database to manage users even if you’re not using the database for anything else. You would then need to store their password hashes, and you almost need a degree on internet security to know the safest ways to do that. What if I told you it didn’t have to be so complicated? Using Okta and...
Build a CRUD App with Node.js and GraphQL
There are so many options when it comes to building out a simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) app. The most refreshing data access layer to work with recently by far has been GraphQL. It’s great because the developer can use a simple, strongly typed language to define models and their relationships, then provide functions to define how each piece should be resolved. The user can then pick and choose which pieces they want and...
Top 10 Visual Studio Code Extensions for Node.js
I am amazed at the adoption of Visual Studio Code by developers from all platforms and languages. According to the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, VS Code is dominating. The primary reasons I use VS Code are its great support for debugging JavaScript and Node.js code, and how easy it is to customize with free extensions available in Visual Studio Marketplace. However, there are thousands of extensions available! How do you know which ones are...
Build a Node.js API with TypeScript
JavaScript has been turning into more and more of a robust language and is no longer just seen in browsers. Server-side JavaScript has become quite relevant. However, one major thing that JavaScript is not, is a strongly typed language. Being explicit with what types to expect from function parameters or object and class properties can help prevent bugs from creeping into the code. It can also help make the code easier to understand if you...
Tutorial: Build Universal Applications with Nuxt.js
Reducing the time between a user clicking your application and the content being displayed is vital. Optimized images? Check! Minified CSS? Check! Minified JS? Check! But if your application is a single page app (or SPA) there is a large bundle of JavaScript that must reach the user before the site can be rendered. Universal applications address this problem by executing as much as possible on your server and sending only the finished page to...
Build a REST API with Node and Postgres
If you haven’t heard of PostgreSQL (often called Postgres), today’s your lucky day. It’s a robust, open source relational database that powers some of the world’s largest applications. In this post, I’ll show you how to create a REST API in Node that uses Postgres as a data store. I’ll walk you through setting everything up, so if you’re not familiar with Postgres, don’t worry. Specifically, I’m going to walk you through building an API...
Build a Secure Node.js App with SQL Server
I am a long-time relational database nerd, specifically SQL Server. At times in my career, I’ve focused on database design, deployments, migrations, administration, query optimization, and carefully crafting stored procedures, triggers, and views. I’ve written applications on top of SQL Server using Visual Basic, “Classic” ASP, ASP.NET, and, in recent years, Node.js. Yes, it’s true. You can build Node.js applications with SQL Server! In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of creating a Node.js...
Modern Token Authentication in Node with Express
Token authentication is the hottest way to authenticate users to your web applications nowadays. There’s a lot of interest in token authentication because it can be faster than traditional session-based authentication in some scenarios, and also allows you some additional flexibility. In this post, I’m going to teach you all about token authentication: what it is, how it works, why you should use it, and how you can use it in your Node applications. Let’s...
Build a Simple Web App with Express, Angular, and GraphQL
During the past 10 years or so, the concept of REST APIs for web services has become the bread and butter for most web developers. Recently a new concept has emerged, GraphQL. GraphQL is a query language that was invented by Facebook and released to the public in 2015. During the last three years, it has created quite a stir. Some regard it as a new revolutionary way of creating web APIs. The main difference...
Build Your First Router in Node with Express
If you’ve done any web development with Node in the last few years, you’ve probably used Express. Even if you haven’t used it directly, many frameworks meant to make web development even simpler are still built on Express. One of the key features in Express is the ability to create routes. An infinite combination of URLs can hit the same Express server, and routes are how you can determine which URLs run what piece of...
Use TypeScript to Build a Node API with Express
Like it or not, JavaScript has been helping developers power the Internet since 1995. In that time, JavaScript usage has grown from small user experience enhancements to complex full-stack applications using Node.js on the server and one of many frameworks on the client such as Angular, React, or Vue. Today, building JavaScript applications at scale remains a challenge. More and more teams are turning to TypeScript to supplement their JavaScript projects. Node.js server applications can...
Create and Verify JWTs with Node
Authentication on the internet has evolved quite a bit over the years. There are many ways to do it, but what worked well enough in the 90s doesn’t quite cut it today. In this tutorial, I’ll briefly cover some older, simpler forms of authentication, then show you how a more modern and more secure approach. By the end of this post, you’ll be able to create and verify JWTs yourself in Node. I’ll also show...
Build a Basic CRUD App with Angular and Node
In recent years, single page applications (SPAs) have become more and more popular. A SPA is a website that consists of just one page. That lone page acts as a container for a JavaScript application. The JavaScript is responsible for obtaining the content and rendering it within the container. The content is typically obtained from a web service and RESTful APIs have become the go-to choice in many situations. The part of the application making...
Build a Simple Web App with Express, React and GraphQL
GraphQL and React have both become quite popular in the last few years, and it’s safe to say they go together like avocado and toast. A GraphQL server can be written in Node and lets you easily create a flexible API using JavaScript classes and functions. When a frontend developer queries the server, only the information asked for gets processed. This means you can make the backend as robust as you want while keeping the...
Build a Simple API Service with Express and GraphQL
GraphQL has become an immensely popular alternative to REST APIs. The flexibility you get from using GraphQL makes it easier for developers to get any information they need for an app, and just the information they need for that portion of the app. That gives you the feel of a very customized API and can help cut down on bandwidth. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to write a custom GraphQL API using Node...
Build and Understand Express Middleware through Examples
If you’ve done any significant Node development in the past seven or eight years, you’ve probably used Express to build a web server at some point. While you can create a server in Node without using a library, it doesn’t give you a lot out of the box and can be quite cumbersome to add functionality. Express is a minimalist, “unopinionated” server library and has become the de facto standard for building web apps in...
Build and Understand Express Middleware through Examples
If you’ve done any significant Node development in the past seven or eight years, you’ve probably used Express to build a web server at some point. While you can create a server in Node without using a library, it doesn’t give you a lot out of the box and can be quite cumbersome to add functionality. Express is a minimalist, “unopinionated” server library and has become the de facto standard for building web apps in...
Hey, Okta! Where's the Bacon?
I am so excited to announce I have joined Okta’s developer relations team as a Senior Developer Advocate! My focus is on all the JavaScripts: Node.js, Vue, React, and a bazillion other things! My Origin Story My first taste of programming was BASIC on the TRS-80. In the 90’s, I wrote a lot of DOS and Windows applications using Pascal and Visual Basic. Around 1998, I made the jump to building Web applications using “classic”...
Hey, Okta! Where's the Bacon?
I am so excited to announce I have joined Okta’s developer relations team as a Senior Developer Advocate! My focus is on all the JavaScripts: Node.js, Vue, React, and a bazillion other things! My Origin Story My first taste of programming was BASIC on the TRS-80. In the 90’s, I wrote a lot of DOS and Windows applications using Pascal and Visual Basic. Around 1998, I made the jump to building Web applications using “classic”...
Build a Simple REST API with Node and OAuth 2.0
JavaScript is used everywhere on the web - nearly every web page will include at least some JavaScript, and even if it doesn’t, your browser probably has some sort of extension that injects bits of JavaScript code on to the page anyway. It’s hard to avoid in 2018. JavaScript can also be used outside the context of a browser, for anything from hosting a web server to controlling an RC car or running a full-fledged...
Build and Understand a Simple Node.js Website with User Authentication
Building websites with user authentication and management (login, registration, password reset, etc.), can be a huge pain. As a developer there are a million little things you need to worry about: Storing the users in your database Making sure you have the right user attributes defined Forcing users to be logged in to view a page Building registration and login forms Creating password reset workflows that email users a link Verifying new users when they...
Build a CRUD-y SPA with Node and Angular
Even before the release of Angular 6, Angular had gone through some changes over the years. The biggest one was the jump from AngularJS (v1.x) to Angular (v2+), which included a lot of breaking syntax changes and made TypeScript the default language instead of JavaScript. TypeScript is actually a superset of JavaScript, but it allows you to have strongly typed functions and variables, and it will get compiled down to JavaScript so that it can...
Build a Basic CRUD App with Node and React
There are a lot of JavaScript frameworks out there today. It seems like I hear about a new one every month or so. They all have their advantages and are usually there to solve some sort of problem with an existing framework. My favorite to work with so far has been React. One of the best things about it is how many open source components and libraries there are in the React ecosystem, so you...
Tutorial: Build a Basic CRUD App with Node.js
Node.js is eating the world. Many of the largest companies are building more and more of their websites and API services with Node.js, and there’s no sign of a slowdown. I’ve been working with Node.js since 2012 and have been excited to see the community and tooling grow and evolve — there’s no better time to get started with Node.js development than right now. This tutorial will take you step-by-step through building a fully-functional Node.js...
How to Securely Manage Users in Your Node App
If you’re building a non-trivial website, chances are you’ll want some way to keep track of users. This can be quite complex and require a good deal of infrastructure, but one of the most secure and scalable ways is also one of the easiest. Using an OAuth 2.0 provider allows you to offload these tasks to an external provider, making your life as a developer so much simpler. When using an OAuth provider, it’s simple...
Secure a Node API with OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials
Securing server-to-server API services can be tricky. OAuth 2.0 is an excellent way to offload user authentication to another service, but what if there is no user to authenticate? In this article, I’ll show you how you can use OAuth 2.0 outside the context of a user, in what is also known as the Client Credentials Flow. Instead of storing and managing API keys for your clients (other servers), you can use a third-party service...
Build Secure Node Authentication with Passport.js and OpenID Connect
Building local or social login in Node can be simple with Passport.js. There are over 500 strategies already built that make it easy to wire up identity providers. But what do you do if your identity provider doesn’t already have a pre-built strategy? Do you have to build all that stuff yourself? Absolutely not! You can use generic strategies for Passport.js that make it easy to use your provider of choice without writing all the...
Simple Node Authentication
Authenticating users for Node.js/Express.js web apps can be difficult. You have to set up a database, define a user schema (or use something more flexible like NoSQL), write code to handle password hashing, etc. It’s annoying. Using Okta’s API service, however, you can easily register and log in users to your Node website using our OpenID Connect integration. Set Up Your Node Environment If you’re new to Node and don’t already have it installed, you’ll...
Open Source Framework Samples and Quickstarts for Okta's Developer APIs
Developers love sample applications. It’s one thing to see the steps to create an application or feature; but when someone provides a working app you can just build and run it’s simply fantastic. Open source is near and dear to many developers today. Many of the frameworks we use to build applications are open source. It’s a great way to develop widely-used software and get contributions from your users. Okta’s Developer Experience (DevEx) team believes...
Build a Basic CRUD App with Vue.js and Node
I’ve danced the JavaScript framework shuffle for years starting with jQuery, then on to Angular. After being frustrated with Angular’s complexity, I found React and thought I was in the clear. What seemed simple on the surface ended up being a frustrating mess. Then I found Vue.js. It just felt right. It worked as expected. It was fast. The documentation was incredible. Templating was eloquent. There was a unanimous consensus around how to handle state...
Build Your Own Invoicing Service with Node, Coinbase, Bitcoin, and Okta
I got into Bitcoin back in 2011. Since then, I’ve been a fan of cryptocurrencies and have always had an interest in them. I’ve also built several Bitcoin projects over the years (an information website, an ecommerce site, and several others) to help promote the usage of the cryptocurrency (while having some fun). The idea of being able to send and receive money almost instantly from anywhere in the world with no middleman is really...
Two Approaches to Setting Up a MERN Stack Application
The trend I’ve seen in web applications is a backend API written in a server-side technology like Node, with a front-end single-page application written in something like React. The problem with these stacks is that it can be hard to run and deploy them as a single unit. The API and UI will need to be started, stopped and deployed separately. That can be a bit of a pain when developing, and if you are...
Use OpenID Connect to Build a Simple Node.js Website
If you’ve ever spent time trying to figure out the best way to handle user authentication for your Node app and been confused: you’re not alone. Over the last few years, authentication practices have changed quite a bit. Today I’m going to show you how to use OpenID Connect to build an extremely simple Node.js website (using Express.js) that allows you to manage your users, log them in, and log them out. Websites used to...