Step 2: Start the ChiselStrike local server

After creating a project with create-chiselstrike-app, you can start building locally with the provided ChiselStrike CLI. Start the local server chiseld in development mode by running the provided npm dev script:

npm run dev

The output will look similar to this:

> my-backend@1.0.0 dev
> chisel dev

🚀 Thank you for your interest in the ChiselStrike beta! 🚀

⚠️  This software is for evaluation purposes only. Do not use it in production. ⚠️

📚 Docs:    https://docs.chiselstrike.com
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/4B5D7hYwub
📧 Email:   beta@chiselstrike.com

For any question, concerns, or early feedback, please contact us via email or Discord!

[date-time] INFO - ChiselStrike server is ready 🚀
[date-time] INFO - URL: http://127.0.0.1:8080
[date-time] INFO - URL: http://[::1]:8080
[date-time] INFO - Version "dev" is ready

From the output, you can see that chiseld runs with a base endpoint URL of http://127.0.0.1:8080 (localhost). You will use this to access any routes and REST APIs while you build locally.

tip

chiseld will not terminate until you choose to do so by typing CTRL-c in the shell. You will need to open a second shell in order to run curl commands to complete this tutorial.

The generated project includes a sample hello route in the routes directory:

my-backend/routes/hello.ts

import { ChiselRequest, RouteMap } from "@chiselstrike/api";

export default new RouteMap()
    .get("/", function (): string {
        return "hello world";
    })
    .post("/", async function (req: ChiselRequest): Promise<unknown> {
        return await req.json();
    });

Routes allow you to write code to handle HTTP requests at a URL specific path. The above code defines a route that handles both HTTP GET and POST requests.

You can use curl to invoke the route with a GET request. Open another shell and run the command:

curl localhost:8080/dev/hello

The route responds with a plain text "hello world":

hello world

In the next step, we'll discuss routes in more detail.