Node.js and Express 5: build and secure a REST API

Node.js lets JavaScript developers build servers with the language they already know, and Express is still the most widely used way to do it. Express 5, the current major version, finally handles errors thrown in async route handlers natively, which removes one of the most common sources of crashed servers and hanging requests.

In this course you build Recipebox, a REST API for saving and sharing recipes. It has users, recipes, ingredients, tags and public collections. We start with a single file and end with a structured, tested and deployed API.

What you will learn

• How Node.js runs server code, and the tools built into modern Node
• Express 5 routing, middleware and error handling
• Request validation with Zod and consistent error responses
• PostgreSQL with Prisma: schema, migrations and queries
• Authentication with hashed passwords and sessions or tokens
• Security essentials: Helmet, CORS, rate limiting and input limits
• Testing with the Node test runner and Supertest
• Logging, configuration and deployment

Who this is for

You know JavaScript, including functions, objects, arrays and async await, and you want to build back ends. No previous server experience is required. Every concept, such as middleware, status codes and database migrations, is explained when we first need it.

By the end, you will understand every line of a small but realistic API, and you will know the security basics that many tutorials skip.