Project

3 minute read

Overview

An API Builder application is a standard Node.js application that runs in a runtime environment. This guide covers how to manage your project.

Project structure

A project is made up of several components. To simplify development, API Builder primarily uses a strict directory structure and naming convention to organize the application rather than configuration files.

The following is a list of directories and files that can be found in a project:

Initializer file

The app.js file contains code that initializes the server instance. You can hook into the lifecycle events of the server as well as make additional setup or middleware calls to the server or Express app instance.

// app.js

var APIBuilder = require('@axway/api-builder-runtime'),
    server = new APIBuilder();
// lifecycle examples
server.on('starting', function () {
    server.logger.debug('server is starting!');
});
server.on('started', function () {
    server.logger.debug('server started!');
});
// start the server
server.start();

Node.js version

To specify a Node.js version or a range of Node.js versions, in the package.json file, set the engines.node key to the Node.js version or range of versions. The default Node.js version is 8.9.

// package.json

"engines": {
    "node": ">= 8.9"
},

Declare dependencies

The application can import any third-party modules that are supported by standard Node.js applications. Before building a container for your application, make sure all dependencies are listed in the dependencies field in the application’s package.json file.

// package.json

{
    "dependencies": {
}