Folder structure for a Node.js project

Concerning the folders you mentioned:

  • /libs is usually used for custom classes/functions/modules
  • /vendor or /support contains 3rd party libraries (added as git sub-module when using git as source control)
  • /spec contains specifications for BDD tests.
  • /tests contains the unit-tests for an application (using a testing framework, see here)

NOTE: both /vendor and /support are deprecated since NPM introduced a clean package management. It's recommended to handle all 3rd-party dependencies using NPM and a package.json file

When building a rather large application, I recommend the following additional folders (especially if you are using some kind of MVC- / ORM-Framework like express or mongoose):

  • /models contains all your ORM models (called Schemas in mongoose)
  • /views contains your view-templates (using any templating language supported in express)
  • /public contains all static content (images, style-sheets, client-side JavaScript)
    • /assets/images contains image files
    • /assets/pdf contains static pdf files
    • /css contains style sheets (or compiled output by a css engine)
    • /js contains client side JavaScript
  • /controllers contain all your express routes, separated by module/area of your application (note: when using the bootstrapping functionality of express, this folder is called /routes)

I got used to organize my projects this way and i think it works out pretty well.

Update for CoffeeScript-based Express applications (using connect-assets):

  • /app contains your compiled JavaScript
  • /assets/ contains all client-side assets that require compilation
    • /assets/js contains your client-side CoffeeScript files
    • /assets/css contains all your LESS/Stylus style-sheets
  • /public/(js|css|img) contains your static files that are not handled by any compilers
  • /src contains all your server-side specific CoffeeScript files
  • /test contains all unit testing scripts (implemented using a testing-framework of your choice)
  • /views contains all your express views (be it jade, ejs or any other templating engine)

More example from my project architecture you can see here:

├── Dockerfile
├── README.md
├── config
│   └── production.json
├── package.json
├── schema
│   ├── create-db.sh
│   ├── db.sql
├── scripts
│   └── deploy-production.sh 
├── src
│   ├── app -> Containes API routes
│   ├── db -> DB Models (ORM)
│   └── server.js -> the Server initlializer.
└── test

Basically, the logical app separated to DB and APP folders inside the SRC dir.


There is a discussion on GitHub because of a question similar to this one: https://gist.github.com/1398757

You can use other projects for guidance, search in GitHub for:

  • ThreeNodes.js - in my opinion, seems to have a specific structure not suitable for every project;
  • lighter - an more simple structure, but lacks a bit of organization;

And finally, in a book (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025344.do) suggests this structure:

├── index.html
├── js/
│   ├── main.js
│   ├── models/
│   ├── views/
│   ├── collections/
│   ├── templates/
│   └── libs/
│       ├── backbone/
│       ├── underscore/
│       └── ...
├── css/
└── ...

Tags:

Node.Js

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