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Express API with Docker and CI Baseline

Goal

Section titled “Goal”

Set up an Express API scaffold with container and CI automation enhancements that are supported by tinkerise.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • Node.js 20.11+
  • tinkerise installed
  • Docker installed

Step 1: Scaffold the Express API

Section titled “Step 1: Scaffold the Express API”
Terminal window
tinkerise backend express inventory-api --typescript
cd inventory-api

Expected result: an Express project generated by the official scaffolder flow.

Step 2: Add quality and delivery enhancements

Section titled “Step 2: Add quality and delivery enhancements”
Terminal window
tinkerise add eslint prettier ci docker env

This adds linting, formatting, GitHub Actions CI, container files, and environment scaffolding.

Step 3: Install and validate locally

Section titled “Step 3: Install and validate locally”
Terminal window
npm install
npm run lint
npm test

Expected result: lint and test commands complete successfully for the generated baseline.

Step 4: Build and run in Docker

Section titled “Step 4: Build and run in Docker”
Terminal window
docker build -t inventory-api .
docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 inventory-api

Verify the service starts in the container and listens on the expected port.

Step 5: Prepare CI usage

Section titled “Step 5: Prepare CI usage”

Push to GitHub so the generated workflow executes on pull requests.

Expected result: CI runs lint/test/build checks with the generated configuration.

Expected generated artifacts

Section titled “Expected generated artifacts”
  • Express app source and scripts from scaffolder
  • .github/workflows/ci.yml from CI enhancement
  • Dockerfile and .dockerignore from Docker enhancement
  • .env.example and related env templates from env enhancement

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
  1. Add commit policy with tinkerise add husky commitlint.
  2. Add dependency automation with tinkerise add renovate.
  3. Compare runtime notes in the Express guide.
Section titled “Related guides”