At the end of last year, I decided I wanted to try my hand at building and consuming my own API.
First, I needed to decide what data I was going to use. Second, I needed a place to host the API, and third, I needed someplace to consume the API and display it.
I knew the stack I was going to use on the backend: Node.js and Express. I decided that I’d host it on Glitch1 as a simple, free way to create a proof-of-concept API.
The data
I used Faker.js’s API to create dummy data for a list of contacts.
Using the API is as simple as calling a few methods in your response, for instance:
res.json({
name: faker.name.findName(),
email: faker.internet.email(),
address: faker.address.streetAddress(),
bio: faker.lorem.sentence(),
// image: faker.image.avatar()
});
});
Structure of the API
I have a directory called /api that holds my user.js that just holds the main route to the root of the project.
I also have a public directory that holds static files.
End result
This is really simple to build. Glitch helps you along but I already was familiar with writing APIs2. The Glitch project is below.
