I'm working on building an all-in-one backend platform for developers, startups, and agencies called Modelier (https://modelier.io). Our goal is to streamline and automate API development
I love to use Node, Mongo, Express, and Mongoose to build out simple APIs for my clients or for prototyping new projects at work. Right now the initial dev process for that looks something like:
1. create Node project directories/files (many dirs/files)
2. define my Mongoose schemas and initalize models
3. sign up for a hosted Mongo instance somewhere (or deploy my own) and hook up Node app
4. write initial Express endpoints for basic CRUD operations against Mongoose models
5. deploy Node app (either manually or with a tool)
There are a lot of scaffolding tools (create-react-app, Yeoman, etc) solving #1, and there are companies solving #5 (Zeit Now, etc), but no solution yet that solves the complete process out-of-the-box.
With Modelier, this process becomes:
1. define API schema w/ spec file (1 file)
2. run Modelier against spec file, which
- spins up hosted MongoDB instance - auto-generates Node app source, complete w/ basic Express CRUD enpoints, automated tests, ESDoc API documentation, etc
- deploys hosted Node app
We released a (very) basic version of the scaffolding tool if you'd like to try it out (nothing gets deployed, requires existing MongoDB instance): https://www.npmjs.com/package/modelier-cli
Eventually users will be able to customize the backend stack as well as datastore of their choice - SQL via Sequelize is up next on the list.
I am looking for feedback on:
- our basic landing page and delivery at https://modelier.io
- if you will use Modelier, and why or why not?
- if not, what would really want to make you use Modelier?
- what are your biggest concerns regarding execution of this product?
Thanks for your time and consideration! Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.