GraphQL + Apollo Server with Express.js and TypeScript

This repository implements a scalable, modular, and robust backend architecture using:

• GraphQL (Apollo Server) for the API gateway.
• Express.js for middleware and server configuration.
• TypeScript for type safety and maintainability.
• A service-oriented, reusable structure to ensure scalability.

Overview - Architecture

📁 Folder Structure

src/
├── modules/              # Feature-based modular structure
│   ├── user/             # Example module
│   │   ├── resolvers/    # GraphQL resolvers
│   │   ├── services/     # Business logic
│   │   ├── models/       # Data models (TypeScript interfaces/classes)
│   │   ├── loaders/      # DataLoaders (batching & caching)
│   │   ├── schema.ts     # GraphQL schema (type definitions)
│   │   └── index.ts      # Module entry point
│   └── product/          # Another feature module
├── utils/                # Shared utility functions (e.g., error handling, logging)
├── config/               # Configuration files (e.g., environment variables)
├── graphql/              # Apollo Server setup
│   ├── context.ts        # Context generation (auth, loaders, etc.)
│   ├── schema.ts         # Root schema stitching
│   └── server.ts         # Apollo Server instance
├── middlewares/          # Express middlewares (e.g., auth, rate limiting)
├── types/                # Global TypeScript types
├── services/             # Reusable services (e.g., email, notifications)
├── database/             # Database connection & ORM models
├── tests/                # Unit and integration tests
└── app.ts                # Express server entry point

🚀 Features

1. GraphQL Gateway:

   • Modular schemas and resolvers for scalability.
   • Schema stitching for combining multiple modules.

2. Express.js Middleware:

   • Secure with Helmet and rate limiting.
   • Logging with Morgan.

3. TypeScript Integration:

   • End-to-end type safety.
   • Easy-to-maintain interfaces and models.

4. Efficient Data Fetching:

   • Batch and cache database queries with DataLoader.

5. Service-Oriented Architecture:

   • Reusable, stateless services for business logic.

6. Error Handling:

   • Centralized error handling with GraphQL extensions.

🛠️ Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.x
• npm or yarn
• Docker (optional for containerization)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/arpitv970/graphql-prod-setup
   cd graphql-prod-setup

   <-- OR --> Clean duplicate repository:

   git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/arpitv970/graphql-prod-setup
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm i

3. Configure environment variables:

   • Create a .env file in the root directory, by simply coping .env.example.
   • Add necessary variables like database connection strings, secret keys, etc.

4. Start the development server:

   npm run dev

🧩 Scripts

• Start development server: npm run dev
• Build for production: npm run build
• Run tests: npm run test

📚 Example GraphQL Query

Here's an example query to test your GraphQL API:

query {
  getUserById(id: "123") {
    id
    name
    email
  }
}

🏗️ Built With

• Apollo Server - GraphQL API Gateway
• Express.js - Web framework for Node.js
• TypeScript - Type-safe JavaScript
• DataLoader - Batching and caching for efficient database queries (Not Integrated Yet)
• Prisma - ORM for database operations (optional)

❤️ Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository and submit a pull request with your changes.

📧 Contact

For questions or support, feel free to reach out at [email protected].