My Sample JSON DB Posts API Node Project

A minimal Express-based REST API backed by a flat JSON data store. It ships with a curated data/db.json sample dataset and is preconfigured with both a custom Express server (src/server.js) and the json-server toolkit for rapid prototyping and manipulation of the data placed under data/.

Project Highlights

• Express server with CRUD routes for posts (and simple readers for comments) wired to the shared JSON data file.
• Hot reloading via nodemon --legacy-watch for environments where file watching is limited.
• JSON Server compatibility so you can spin up additional mock endpoints or explore the dataset with zero coding.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or newer (LTS recommended)
• npm 9+ (bundled with Node.js)

Verify your versions:

node --version
npm --version

Installation

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

2. (Optional) Review the sample dataset in data/db.json and tailor it to your needs. The structure includes posts, comments, and users collections by default.

Running the Express API

The primary development server is defined in src/server.js. It exposes CRUD operations against the posts collection and read-only access for comments.

Start it with nodemon:

npm start

• The server listens on http://localhost:3000.
• Requests are read/written directly against data/db.json.
• Newly created posts receive incremental numeric IDs.

Available Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
GET	/posts	List all posts
GET	/posts/:id	Get a single post by ID
POST	/posts	Create a new post (provide JSON body)
PUT	/posts/:id	Update an existing post
DELETE	/posts/:id	Remove a post
GET	/users/:id	Get a single user by ID
GET	/comments	List all comments

Sample curl requests

# List posts
curl http://localhost:3000/posts

# Create a post
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/posts \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"title":"New Article","userId":3}'

# Update a post
curl -X PUT http://localhost:3000/posts/1 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"title":"Revised Title"}'

# Delete a post
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/posts/3

Changes made through the API immediately persist in data/db.json.

Using JSON Server

This project also bundles json-server for teams that prefer its full CRUD scaffolding against the same dataset.

Start JSON Server (optional) on a different port:

npx json-server --watch data/db.json --port 4000 --delay 200

• The --watch flag keeps the server in sync with edits to db.json.
• --port 4000 avoids clashing with the Express server.
• --delay 200 simulates network latency; adjust or remove as needed.

JSON Server automatically creates RESTful routes for every top-level key in db.json, giving you endpoints such as /posts, /comments, and /users with filtering, sorting, and pagination support out of the box. See the JSON Server documentation for advanced query patterns.

Development Tips

• Keep data/db.json well-formed JSON; syntax errors will surface in the server logs.
• If you change the data structure, update the Express routes accordingly or rely on JSON Server for ultra-rapid prototyping.
• For production scenarios, consider replacing the flat-file persistence with a database driver and moving secrets into environment variables before deployment.

Happy prototyping!