JSON Server Template

Setup

Fork and clone this repo. Then install the dependencies by running:

npm install

Seeding Data

To set up your database, update the db/seeds.json file to contain an object with a key pointing to an array of data, like this:

{
  "toys": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Woody",
      "image": "http://www.pngmart.com/files/3/Toy-Story-Woody-PNG-Photos.png",
      "likes": 8
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "name": "Buzz Lightyear",
      "image": "http://www.pngmart.com/files/6/Buzz-Lightyear-PNG-Transparent-Picture.png",
      "likes": 14
    }
  ]
}

Then, run npm run seed to copy data from the db/seeds.json file to the db/db.json file. json-server uses the db.json file to create your RESTful API, so make sure your db.json file is always up to date!

Any time you want to reset your database back to your original data, run npm run seed again. Doing this will overwrite all the data in your db.json file, so make sure you don't have any data in that file that you don't mind losing!

Running the Server Locally

To run your server in development mode, run:

npm run dev

While running in development mode, the server will re-load any time you make changes to the db.json file, so you can test our your seed data.

While your server is running, you can make requests to http://localhost:3000. Check it out in the browser to make sure your server works!

Deploying

Free services like Render make it simple to deploy your Node server. Render also works nicely with Rails, which you'll learn later in the program.

Sign Up for a Render Account

You can sign up for a free account at https://dashboard.render.com/register. We recommend that you sign up using GitHub as that will make it a little easier for you to connect Render to your GitHub account. The instructions below assume you've done that.

Once you've completed the signup process, you will be taken to the Render dashboard.

In order to connect Render to your GitHub account, you'll need to click the "New Web Service" button in the "Web Services" box. On the next page, you will see a GitHub heading on the right side and below that a link labeled "Configure account". (If you didn't sign up using GitHub, it will say "Connect account" instead.) Click that link; a modal will appear asking you for permission to install Render on your GitHub account. Click "Install." You should then be taken back to the "Create a New Web Service" page, which should now show a list of your GitHub repos.

Deploy the Server

Find the GitHub repo for your json server in the list and click Connect. Give the web service a name and make sure the Environment is set to Node. Everything else can be left as is. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Create Web Service." The build process will begin automatically.

The URL for your deployed server is shown in the upper left corner of the page, e.g., https://my-server.onrender.com. Once the build is complete, you will be able to make fetch requests to that URL.

Making Updates

Since Render deployment integrates with your GitHub repo, you can easily deploy changes to your database. First, commit and push your code up to GitHub:

git add .
git commit -m "Updated database"
git push

Then launch the build process by going to the page for your server on the Render dashboard, clicking the "Manual Deploy" button in the upper right corner of the page, and selecting "Deploy latest commit."