Hello Product Hunt! 👋 I’m Arif, the maker of Velvet. As a developer, I’ve always found myself spending way too much time setting up boilerplates for REST APIs. You know the drill: configuring TypeScript, setting up authentication, writing validation schemas, integrating Swagger docs, and making sure everything works seamlessly together. It’s tedious, repetitive, and honestly, not the most exciting part of building an app. That’s why I created Velvet — a modern, minimal, and highly customizable REST API starter kit powered by Node.js, Express.js, and TypeORM. Think of it as your go-to toolbox for kickstarting any backend project without reinventing the wheel. Here’s what makes Velvet special: ✅ CLI for Resource Generation: Need a new resource? Just run `npm run generate`, answer a few prompts, and boom! Your controller, service, repository, DTO, entity, and route files are ready to go. No more copy-pasting or manual setup. ✅ Dockerized Environment: Spin up your dev environment effortlessly with Docker. Everything is pre-configured so you can focus on coding instead of wrestling with dependencies. ✅ Built-in Authentication & Authorization: Secure your API out of the box with JWT-based auth and role-based access control. Admin routes? Yup, we’ve got those too. ✅ Zod Validation + Class Transformer DTOs: Ensure data integrity and transform payloads cleanly with Zod and Class Transformer. No more messy validation logic scattered across your codebase. ✅ API Documentation Ready: Access interactive Swagger UI and Redoc UI right from your browser. Your API docs are generated automatically based on your endpoints. ✅ Advanced Searching & Filtering: Add powerful querying capabilities to your API with ease—sorting, filtering, and keyword search all included. And that’s just scratching the surface! Whether you’re building a small side project or a large-scale enterprise application, Velvet gives you a rock-solid foundation to build upon. Why I Built This The inspiration for Velvet came from my own frustrations while starting new projects. Every time I wanted to experiment with an idea, I ended up wasting hours (or even days) setting up the basics. I realized there had to be a better way—a streamlined, opinionated starter kit that lets developers hit the ground running. So, I poured all my learnings into Velvet. Over time, it evolved into something I genuinely love using myself. And now, I’m excited to share it with the community! What’s Next? While Velvet is already packed with features, I’m constantly looking for ways to improve it. Some ideas on the roadmap include: - GraphQL support - Multi-tenancy architecture - Enhanced CLI functionality But most importantly, I’d love to hear your thoughts! What features would make Velvet even better for your workflow? If you’re tired of starting from scratch every time you want to build a REST API, give Velvet a try! 🚀 It’s completely open-source under the MIT license, and contributions are welcome. Feel free to drop your questions, feedback, or suggestions below—I’d love to chat! Thanks so much for checking it out, and happy coding! 💻✨ 👉 GitHub Repo

Velvet

The simplest way to create REST API

The simplest way to create REST API