Introduction

Getting Started

Greetings, friend! This tutorial will cover creating an API using the NestJS framework. Along the way, we will build out the application using tests with Cypress and the Cypress API Plugin.

If you are unfamiliar with NestJS, it is a Node-based framework heavily influenced by Angular and is great for building any server-side application. What I like about Nest is that it provides building blocks (similar to those found in Angular) for creating applications. This helps those familiar with Nest and how it works to jump from project to project and know roughly how things already work.

Cypress is typically known for end-to-end testing web applications, as well as component testing. With the Cypress API Plugin, we can also use Cypress to test our backend applications. The plugin provides a nice interface showing each API call's results. Typically I would reach for something like Postman to use when I develop APIs, but with Cypress, I can nearly replace Postman and have a nice suite of automated tests to go along with it when I'm done.

For this tutorial, we are creating a mission board for a fictional agency called Cypress Heroes. This board will feature a list of our heroes' missions. We'll be able to get, create, update, and delete missions on the board. Yes, it's a to-do list, but it's much cooler because, you know, superheroes.

Pre-requisites

To get started, you will need the following tools:

• Laptop
• Node 16+
• Git
• VS Code or similar IDE