Node.js project naming conventions for files & folders

After some years with node, I can say that there are no conventions for the directory/file structure. However most (professional) express applications use a setup like:

/
  /bin - scripts, helpers, binaries
  /lib - your application
  /config - your configuration
  /public - your public files
  /test - your tests

An example which uses this setup is nodejs-starter.

I personally changed this setup to:

/
  /etc - contains configuration
  /app - front-end javascript files
    /config - loads config
    /models - loads models
  /bin - helper scripts
  /lib - back-end express files
    /config - loads config to app.settings
    /models - loads mongoose models
    /routes - sets up app.get('..')...
  /srv - contains public files
  /usr - contains templates
  /test - contains test files

In my opinion, the latter matches better with the Unix-style directory structure (whereas the former mixes this up a bit).

I also like this pattern to separate files:

lib/index.js

var http = require('http');
var express = require('express');

var app = express();

app.server = http.createServer(app);

require('./config')(app);

require('./models')(app);

require('./routes')(app);

app.server.listen(app.settings.port);

module.exports = app;

lib/static/index.js

var express = require('express');

module.exports = function(app) {

  app.use(express.static(app.settings.static.path));

};

This allows decoupling neatly all source code without having to bother dependencies. A really good solution for fighting nasty Javascript. A real-world example is nearby which uses this setup.

Update (filenames):

Regarding filenames most common are short, lowercase filenames. If your file can only be described with two words most JavaScript projects use an underscore as the delimiter.

Update (variables):

Regarding variables, the same "rules" apply as for filenames. Prototypes or classes, however, should use camelCase.

Update (styleguides):

• https://github.com/feross/standard
• https://github.com/airbnb/javascript

There are no conventions. There are some logical structure.

The only one thing that I can say: Never use camelCase file and directory names. Why? It works but on Mac and Windows there are no different between someAction and some action. I met this problem, and not once. I require'd a file like this:

var isHidden = require('./lib/isHidden');

But sadly I created a file with full of lowercase: lib/ishidden.js. It worked for me on mac. It worked fine on mac of my co-worker. Tests run without errors. After deploy we got a huge error:

Error: Cannot find module './lib/isHidden'

Oh yeah. It's a linux box. So camelCase directory structure could be dangerous. It's enough for a colleague who is developing on Windows or Mac.

So use underscore (_) or dash (-) separator if you need.

Use kebab-case for all package, folder and file names.

Why?

You should imagine that any folder or file might be extracted to its own package some day. Packages cannot contain uppercase letters.

New packages must not have uppercase letters in the name. https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#name

Therefore, camelCase should never be used. This leaves snake_case and kebab-case.

kebab-case is by far the most common convention today. The only use of underscores is for internal node packages, and this is simply a convention from the early days.