🚀 REST API Starter

** Jumpstart your next project with a modern, secure, and production-ready REST API boilerplate.**

Built for speed, learning, and real-world use.

• 🚀 No more boilerplate headache: Authentication, CRUD, modular structure, all ready-to-go.
• 🧑‍💻 Perfect for hackathons, startups, tutorials, and open source.
• 🌎 Deploy to the cloud, demo for your team, or learn best practices by example.

Give your next Node.js API a professional foundation—with one git clone.

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🧑‍💻 About

A modern, beginner-friendly REST API boilerplate for Node.js. Features user authentication with JWT, modular project structure, clean code, and MongoDB integration. Ideal for building scalable APIs, learning backend best practices, or starting a new project!

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✨ Features

• User authentication (register/login) with JWT
• Modular structure: controllers, models, routes, middlewares
• Sample protected resource CRUD (Posts)
• Centralized error handling
• MongoDB with Mongoose (ready for cloud or local)
• ESLint + Prettier for code quality
• .env.example included for easy setup

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• Node.js, Express
• MongoDB (Mongoose)
• JWT (jsonwebtoken)
• ESLint & Prettier
• dotenv

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/Yasir-Rafique/rest-api-starter.git
cd rest-api-starter

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Configure environment variables:

• Copy .env.example to .env
• Fill in your values (see comments in file)

4. Start MongoDB:

• Use MongoDB Atlas (recommended!) or local MongoDB

5. Run the server:

npm run dev

• Your server runs on http://localhost:5000 by default

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🛡️ API Endpoints

Auth

• POST /api/auth/register — Register a new user
• POST /api/auth/login — Log in and get JWT token
• GET /api/auth/me — Get current user (protected)

Posts (all require JWT in Authorization: Bearer )

• POST /api/posts — Create post
• GET /api/posts — List all your posts
• GET /api/posts/:id — Get a specific post
• PUT /api/posts/:id — Update your post
• DELETE /api/posts/:id — Delete your post

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📬 Example Requests

Register

POST /api/auth/register
{
  "name": "Your Name",
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "password": "yourpassword"
}

Login

POST /api/auth/login
{
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "password": "yourpassword"
}

Copy the token from login and use it in protected routes: Authorization: Bearer <token>

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📝 Contributing

• Fork the repo
• Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature/your-feature)
• Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add something')
• Push to the branch (git push origin feature/your-feature)
• Open a Pull Request

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⭐ Like this project? Give it a star! Sharing and feedback are appreciated.

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🪪 License MIT — see LICENSE for details.

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