Tutorial: Hello World!

Prerequisites

Hitchy is implemented in Javascript and requires Node.js as a runtime. In addition, it relies on a tool called npm which is used to access a vast amount of ready-to-use packages. Hitchy is just one of those. npm is included with Node.js.

Create Project

Create and enter new folder for your project:
bash
```
mkdir hello-world && cd hello-world
```
Initialize the project:
bash
```
npm init
```
Install Hitchy:
bash
```
npm i @hitchy/core
```

Configure Router

Create a sub-folder named config. Put a file named routes.js with the following content there:

config/routes.js

javascript

exports.routes = {
	"/": ( req, res ) => res.send( "Hello World!" ),
};

Important

The file's name does not matter much. The key routes used for exporting in first line of file's content is essential though. As a convention, we suggest to name the file just like the exported configuration key to support long-term maintenance of code.

CommonJS or ES module?

Examples in this tutorial use CommonJS module syntax as this is the created project's default.

Hitchy is capable of dealing with either kind of project out of the box. It also recognizes files with extensions .cjs and .mjs to explicitly contain either a CommonJS module or an ES module regardless of the containing project's type.

Run Project

When in project folder enter

hitchy start

for running the project. This will display some URL to be opened in a web browser, like http://127.0.0.1:3000. Click on the URL or copy-n-paste it into your browser to get the desired output.

Stopping Hitchy

After starting hitchy the service is running in foreground. Log messages are printed on screen. If you want to stop hitchy just press Ctrl+C. This will gracefully shut down Hitchy.

Dockerize Your Project

For production setup, we strongly suggest to put your project in a Docker container.

Create a file named Dockerfile in root folder of your project containing:

Dockerfile

dockerfile

FROM node:lts-alpine
COPY . /app
RUN npm ci
CMD ["npm", "run", "start:docker"]
EXPOSE 3000

Create another file named .dockerignore in same folder with content:
```
node_modules
```
This improves build time of the Docker image and prevents potential issues at runtime.
Open your project's package.json file. Look for the scripts section and add script start:docker as demonstrated:
package.json
json
```
{
  ...
  "scripts": {
    ...
    "start:docker": "hitchy start --ip=0.0.0.0"
  }
  ...
}
```
Build the image to use on creating containers:
bash
```
docker build -t name-of-your-project .
```
Optional: Publish your project by pushing the created image to a remote registry of Docker images:
bash
```
docker push name-of-your-project
```

After that you may run your service at any machine with docker engine installed. Create and run a container with:

bash

docker run -d --restart always -p 3000:3000 name-of-your-project

Tutorial: Hello World! ​

Prerequisites ​

Create Project ​

Configure Router ​