phobosjs / phobos.js

A small JSON API framework for Mongoose and Express that takes all the annoyance of middleware out of your hands

Phobos.js

A small JSON API framework for Mongoose and Express that takes all the annoyance of middleware out of your hands.

Docs

Go to phobos.js.org for documentation.

A note about ES6

The latest branch of phobosjs is written in ES6. If you want to use the last ES5-compatible version, install release 1.0.21.

phobos.js's Issues

Scopes don't work as intended

Using a scope like this on a user that has both client and user scope.

show: {
  scope: [ '*', 'owner', 'client', 'admin' ],
  leanQuery: false
}

I'm expecting my API to return client scoped parameters, instead I get * scoped parameters.

hopelesslybroken

Allow for querying by range or greater/lesser than

This would be useful for things like date ranges.

Create a JWT generating and handling system

• Need to expose the ability to create/verify JWTs.
• Save the pattern so that lookups can be done on given tokens in a uniform way. Probably save them inside PhobosInstance.
• Validate/invalidate tokens - this means saving them somewhere

Expose APIs of Express plugins for customization

Need to be able to set up things like bodyParser from the app level.

Permissions and GET /:resource should accept functions

This will help with searching "through" to association data, and also allow "through" associations to permissions.

Also will make map + reduce functionality possible.

Default responders

The default RESTful CRUD actions shouldn't have to be painstakingly redefined in every controller. There should be some defaults that will be used, but they should be overwritable.

Full suite of CI tests

Not an alpha anymore, so need a full test suite. Gonna use Travis CI to run it each time.

Break out middleware into individual files for modularity's sake

Making them easier to design and test.

Mutations

Build write controls in!

Each resource should have methods for writing to it, sanitizing params and of course verifying the permissions of the user.

Response data on index routes should be streamed

Should rework some of the logic when grabbing multiple results so that it uses stream objects and generators.

Kill the process on db disconnect

This will aid in the ability for process managers (like PM2) to handle a broken connection.

If search param is not present as field in a model

There are going to be cases where someone wants to search using a parameter that will require additional logic than just a simple lookup.

Case in point: a through-type association.

phobos.js should first look to see if a field exists, and if it doesn't but it's whitelisted in searchableBy, then it should look for a function to run in the model's static methods.

Rewrite using the Mongo driver instead of Mongoose

Might be nice, as Mongoose does create quite a bit of overhead.

Cannot read property while deleting a item

When running DELETE on http://localhost:5020/tasks/56b9e60ff6b55a2c279f488a:

TypeError: Cannot read property 'remove' of null
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at mutate (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/phobosjs/middleware/mutate.js:35:25)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at next (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:131:13)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at applyScope (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/phobosjs/middleware/apply-scope.js:30:29)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at next (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:131:13)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at ownership (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/phobosjs/middleware/ownership.js:19:29)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at next (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:131:13)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at scopeCatch (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/phobosjs/middleware/scope-catch.js:40:14)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at next (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:131:13)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at /Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/phobosjs/middleware/query-runner.js:60:28
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at Query.&lt;anonymous&gt; (/Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/mongoose/lib/query.js:2149:28)
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at /Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/kareem/index.js:177:19
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp;at /Users/Adriaan/MGMco/phobosjs-sampleapp/node_modules/kareem/index.js:109:16

Possible to use phobos.js as express/connect middleware?

I have an existing Express application, and I'd like to try using Phobos to implement a new API in it (e.g. mount it to /new-api/v1/* with app.use or by passing my app object & path to it, etc.). Is this possible/supported? The example I saw ("Getting Started" / bootstrapping) instead required having phobos be responsible for creating the Express app, which is not what I want.

Integrate default search params/queries

Things like limit need to be pre-set so we don't get a dump of ridiculous proportions.

Others might be nice as well.

Resource access control

Middleware should grab the resource and filter it through allowed parameters from the scopes manifest.

Benchmark Restify for use instead of Express

Break out ORM from app

Right now, module is entirely dependent on MongoDB through Mongoose. It would be nice to also support some popular relational systems like Postgres.

Documentation

Write some docs!!! How? What? Where? When? Why?

Allow scope setting on controller responders using defaults

This is a bit of a security concern. The defaults currently just use the permission matrices of the model, which is not always ideal.

Add seeds

That would be nice!

Add migrations

That would be nice!

Rewrite docs to reflect API changes for 1.x.x

People need to know what the hell they're dealing with here

Build mutator into middleware stack

Currently, the Mutator operates separately from the middleware stack. That was to save complexity for the alpha release. But now it's time to re-integrate it into the stack.

Move scopes and schema into the controller file

On retrospect, it makes no sense to have a giant scopes file. What would be nice is to add this to the existing controllers.

Write a router that utilizes the middleware properly

The router has now been split out into middleware, but it still needs a unified module to wrap it all together.

Rewrite in ES6

Great thing about node is we don't really need to worry about ES6 compatibility in the browser. The syntax is a lot nicer, so maybe it would be a good idea to do a bit of a rewrite.

Encoder/decoder for JWT

Should make it possible to specify what is stored in the token + store a session ID rather than a user ID to make the framework more secure.

Break up tests into modules

One big test file is awful.

SEO Make if findable in GitHub

I searched for "mongoose api express", but I did not find this repo.

How to write plugins and other middleware

[email protected] will support plugins and better support for more middleware to be added to its stack. There's a new dependency injector for the middleware, and there needs to be docs on how to use it.