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Are you looking to build rest API and deploy it on AWS, if yes, then you’ve landed in the right place.

In this article, you will build a simple restful to-do list API and after deploy it on AWS. I’ll pick the nodejs express framework, MongoDB as the MongoDB atlas database for building the API. You’ll be required to create an account on https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/register and create a free database then copy the database URL and paste it into the .env file in MONGO_URL variable. Install nodejs in your system. https://nodejs.org/en/ just download it, and install, by clicking the next and next buttons.

The first step is initiate the project by opening the cmd in window or terminal in mac:

npm init

The second step: Open again cmd/terminal, then install a few dependencies in our project:

npm install express cors mongoose dotenv

Let me explain each dependency:

–express is a nodejs framework to make it easier to build web APIs, the framework is a collection of libraries that make the rapid development.
–cors is a Cross-origin resource sharing which restricted the access the APIs to use by other websites except which we allowed.
–mongoose is an ORM (Object Relation Mapping) that makes the clean code of database query.
–dotenv protect the string data such as database name, and password, etc.

Now, let make the structure.
Third step: Create a few folders at the root of the project:

1. controllers (in controller folder, we will write functions related to todo, such as AddTodo, EditTodo, DeleteTodo)
2. models (Define the structure of task: such as task name, createdAt )
3. routes ( it map the controller’s functions and give us access endpoint.
4. config (We’ll create the databse.js file that connects the MongoDB with our API)
5. server.js
6. package.json

Fourth step: Create scripts:

Create the file todoController.js in the controllers folder and copy this code:

const Todo = require('./models/todoModel.js');

exports.createTodo = async (req, res) => {
  const todo = new Todo(req.body);
  await todo.save();

 res.json({
   success: true,
   message: 'Todo created'
 }) 
};

exports.deleteTodo = async (req, res) => {
  await Todo.findByIdAndDelete(req.params.id);

  res.json({
   success: true,
   message: "Todo deleted"
  })
};

Create the file todoModel.js in the models folder and copy this code:

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

const todoSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  todo: String,
  createdAt: {
     type: Date,
     default: Date.now
   }
});

module.exports = mongoose.model("Todo", todoSchema);

Create the file todos.js in the routes folder and copy this code:

const express = require('express');
const { createTodo, deleteTodo } = require('../controller/todoController.js');

router.route('/').post(createTodo);
router.route('/:id').delete(deleteTodo);

const router = express.Router();

module.exports = router;

Create the file todos.js in the routes folder and copy this code: