Building a Modern Node.js CLI Generator for Microservices – Part 1: Introduction and Project Setup

In today’s microservices-driven development landscape, setting up new services with consistent architecture, proper tooling, and best practices can be time-consuming and error-prone. What if you could generate a complete Node.js microservice template with HTTP endpoints, Kafka messaging, Redis caching, and Docker configuration in just a few seconds?

In this 4-part series, we’ll build a professional CLI tool called create-node-microservice that generates production-ready Node.js microservice templates. By the end of this series, you’ll have a powerful tool that can scaffold complete microservices with modern architecture patterns.

Why Build a CLI Generator?

CLI generators solve several critical problems in modern development:

• Consistency: Ensures all projects follow the same architecture and conventions
• Speed: Reduces project setup time from hours to minutes
• Best Practices: Bakes in security, performance, and maintainability patterns
• Onboarding: New team members can start productive work immediately

What We’ll Build

Our CLI tool will generate Node.js microservices with these features:

Architecture Overview

Our generated microservices will follow this architecture pattern:

flowchart TD
    A[HTTP Client] -->|REST API| B[Express Server]
    B --> C[Business Logic]
    C --> D[Kafka Producer]
    C --> E[Redis Cache]
    F[Kafka Consumer] --> C
    G[External Service] -->|Messages| F
    
    subgraph "Generated Microservice"
        B
        C
        D
        E
        F
    end
    
    style A fill:#e1f5fe
    style B fill:#f3e5f5
    style C fill:#e8f5e8
    style D fill:#fff3e0
    style E fill:#ffebee
    style F fill:#fff3e0
    style G fill:#e1f5fe

Project Structure Overview

The CLI tool itself will have this structure:

create-node-microservice/
├── bin/
│   └── cli.js              # Entry point
├── src/
│   ├── cli.ts              # Main CLI logic
│   ├── prompts.ts          # Interactive prompts
│   ├── generator.ts        # Template generator
│   └── templates/          # Mustache templates
│       ├── package.json.mustache
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── index.ts.mustache
│       │   ├── services/
│       │   └── routes/
│       ├── docker-compose.yml.mustache
│       └── .env.example.mustache
├── package.json
└── README.md

Setting Up the Development Environment

Let’s start by creating our CLI project structure:

# Create project directory
mkdir create-node-microservice
cd create-node-microservice

# Initialize package.json
npm init -y

# Install dependencies
npm install commander inquirer chalk ora fs-extra mustache validate-npm-package-name

# Install dev dependencies
npm install -D typescript @types/node @types/inquirer @types/fs-extra @types/mustache tsx jest

Package.json Configuration

Update your package.json with the essential configuration:

{
  "name": "create-node-microservice",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "CLI tool to generate Node.js microservice templates",
  "bin": {
    "create-node-microservice": "./bin/cli.js"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "dev": "tsx watch src/cli.ts",
    "test": "jest",
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run build"
  },
  "keywords": ["cli", "template", "generator", "microservice"],
  "files": ["bin", "dist", "templates"],
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=18.0.0"
  }
}

TypeScript Configuration

Create a tsconfig.json for TypeScript compilation:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2022",
    "module": "ESNext",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "rootDir": "./src",
    "strict": true,
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,
    "declaration": true,
    "declarationMap": true,
    "sourceMap": true
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*"],
  "exclude": ["node_modules", "dist", "templates"]
}

What’s Next?

In Part 2, we’ll dive into building the interactive CLI interface using Commander.js and Inquirer.js. We’ll create beautiful prompts that guide users through configuring their microservice template, including service selection, ports, and database connections.

Key topics we’ll cover in the next post:

• Building interactive CLI prompts
• Input validation and error handling
• Configuration management
• Beautiful terminal UI with colors and spinners

Make sure to follow along as we build this powerful development tool that will streamline your microservice development workflow!

Have questions or suggestions? Drop them in the comments below!