NestJS Starter Template: Rapid Backend Development Template

Short Description

In this project, I've set up a NestJS-based backend starter template; it comes with authentication, user management, media upload, Redis, RabbitMQ, WebSocket, and Swagger documentation ready to go. This template can be found at nest-starter-template GitHub repository.

Problem

Rebuilding authentication, logging, validation, file uploads, and infrastructure connections from scratch for every new backend project is time-consuming. Specifically, setting up PostgreSQL, S3-compatible storage, and the messaging layer from the ground up slows down the initial phase.

Solution

In this template, I've established a modular NestJS structure and divided components like auth, users, media, redis, rabbitmq, and websocket into separate modules. I've prepared the application to work with PostgreSQL via TypeORM; added JWT-based authentication, role-based access control, rate limiting, idempotency, global validation, and exception handling layers. On the media side, I've created a workflow that writes files to S3-compatible storage, generates image variants, and handles profile picture endpoints.

Outcome

The result is not just an empty starter but a backend skeleton that is closer to a real-world project. When you set up the project, Swagger is accessible, local development can be done with PostgreSQL and MinIO, and test and production commands are ready to use.

Technologies

NestJS, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, TypeORM, JWT, Passport, Redis, RabbitMQ, WebSocket, Swagger, AWS S3 SDK, Sharp, Pino, Elasticsearch, Zod, Jest, ESLint, Prettier, Yarn, Docker, MinIO

Setup