How to store routes in separate files when using Hapi?

Question

All of the Hapi examples (and similar in Express) shows routes are defined in the starting file:

var Hapi = require(\'hapi\');

var server = new Hapi.Server();
s         


        

Answer 1

Interesting to see so many different solutions, here is another one.

Globbing to the rescue

For my latest project I settled on globbing for files with a particular name pattern and then requiring them into the server one by one.

Import routes after having created the server object

// Construct and setup the server object.
// ...

// Require routes.
Glob.sync('**/*route*.js', { cwd: __dirname }).forEach(function (ith) {
    const route = require('./' + ith);
    if (route.hasOwnProperty('method') && route.hasOwnProperty('path')) {
        console.log('Adding route:', route.method, route.path);
        server.route(route);
    }
});

// Start the server.
// ...

The glob pattern **/*route*.js will find all files within and below the specified current working directory with a name that contains the word route and ends with the suffix .js.

File structure

With the help of globbing we have a loose coupling between the server object and its routes. Just add new route files and they will be included the next time you restart your server.

I like to structure the route files according to their path and naming them with their HTTP-method, like so:

server.js
routes/
    users/
        get-route.js
        patch-route.js
        put-route.js
    articles/
        get-route.js
        patch-route.js
        put-route.js

Example route file routes/users/get-route.js

module.exports = {
    method: 'GET',
    path: '/users',
    config: {
        description: 'Fetch users',
        // ...
    },
    handler: function (request, reply) {
        // ...
    }
};

Final thoughts

Globbing and iterating over files is not a particularly fast process, hence a caching layer may be worth investigating in production builds depending on your circumstances.