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Installation on Ubuntu


1. Install NVM (Node Version Manager)

  • Update your package list:
 sudo apt update

  • Install NVM:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bash

Note: Replace v0.35.3 with the latest version if necessary.


  • Verify the installation:
nvm --version

  • Install the latest version of Node.js using NVM:
nvm install node

2. Install Docker

  1. Update System Packages:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg

  2. Add Docker's Official GPG Key:

    sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
    curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
    sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

  3. Set Up Docker Repository:

    echo \
    "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
    $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

  4. Install Docker:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

  5. Verify Docker Installation:

    docker --version

Using Snap

  1. Install Docker using Snap:

    sudo snap install docker

    This installs the Snap version of Docker, typically updated to version 27.2.0 or later.

Verify Installations

Check Docker version:

docker --version

3. Install Docker Compose

  1. Download the Latest Version of Docker Compose:

    mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins/
    curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.29.7/docker-compose-linux-$(uname -m) -o ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

  2. Set Executable Permissions:

    chmod +x ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

  3. Verify Docker Compose Installation:

    docker compose version

Using Snap

To install Docker Compose directly using Apt, you can use the following command:

sudo apt install docker-compose

Verify Installations

Check Docker Compose version:

docker-compose --version

4. Allow Managing Docker as a Non-Root User


  • Add your user to the Docker group:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

  • Log out and log back in for the changes to take effect, or run:
newgrp docker

5. Install Xest


  • Install Xest globally using NPM:
npm install -g xest

After installing the XEST CLI globally, you can now bootstrap your API.

Bootstrapping Your API

In order to create your API, you need to run the following commmand:

xx [project-name]

With one simple command, you will be installing all the necessary packages, utils, middlewares and required modules will be created for you. Have a look at the created directory.

cd project-name

to start your Xest API, run

xx run

Et voila! You're ready to Xest :)

The project-name directory will be created, node modules and a few other boilerplate files will be installed, and a src/ directory will be created and populated with several core files, forming a new API-directory with the following setup;

├── README.md
├── index.js
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json
├── node_modules
├── migrations
├── test
├── .env
├── .eslintignore
├── .eslintrc
├── .gitattributes
├── database.json
├── jsconfig.json
├── Makefile
├── database
│ ├── database-schema.sql
│ └── seed-data.sql
│ └── docker-compose.yml
│ └── test-database.json
└── src

docker-compose.yml is our local development environment configuration. When you run your application, a MySQL container will be started for you. You can connect to the local database instance by using the credentials listed in the docker-compose.yml file.

database-schema.sql is where you will define your database schema. It will be a series of CREATE TABLE statements which is used to populate your local development database.

seed-data.sql will contain the test data that you want to insert into your database whilst developing or testing your application locally.