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Handling TypeScript Types in a REST API with Express and MongoDB

šŸ‘€ Views: 0 šŸ’¬ Answers: 1 šŸ“… Created: 2025-09-21
typescript express mongodb validation TypeScript

I just started working with Currently developing a REST API using TypeScript, Express, and MongoDB, I find myself needing to define the types for my data models and request/response payloads. I want to ensure that my endpoint validations are both strict and helpful without cluttering the code. For instance, here's a fragment of my user model: ```typescript interface User { id: string; username: string; email: string; password: string; createdAt: Date; } ``` However, when implementing the registration endpoint, it seems that I need to validate incoming request bodies. I tried using libraries like `zod` and `Joi`, but I’m not quite sure how to integrate them effectively with my TypeScript interfaces. Here's the endpoint setup I have so far: ```typescript import express from 'express'; import { z } from 'zod'; const app = express(); app.use(express.json()); const userSchema = z.object({ username: z.string().min(3), email: z.string().email(), password: z.string().min(6), }); app.post('/register', (req, res) => { const result = userSchema.safeParse(req.body); if (!result.success) { return res.status(400).json({ errors: result.error.errors }); } // Continue with registration logic }); ``` The code compiles, but using `safeParse` feels a bit cumbersome, especially since I'd like to automatically infer the types from the schema for my subsequent operations. Is there a way to improve this TypeScript type definition throughout my application? Furthermore, I'm curious if there's a more effective way to handle errors that arise from schema validation. The current error handling just returns a response with the validation errors, but I want to provide a more user-friendly message. I considered creating a utility function to format errors but ended up with a lot of repetitive code. Any suggestions or best practices that help streamline TypeScript type handling in this context would be highly appreciated! Any help would be greatly appreciated! Could someone point me to the right documentation?