bizwiz3/nova

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Installation & Usage
  • Installation
  • Usage
    • Manual Setup
• Core Features
• Routing Conventions
• Middleware Chaining

Installation & Usage

Installation

Install Nova via the Pesde package manager:

pesde add bizwiz3/nova
pesde install

Usage

Manual Setup

1. Create a src/ directory in your project root.
2. Create an entry file (e.g., index.luau) inside src/ with the following code:

local Nova = require("@path/to/nova")

local app = Nova.new(8080)

app:listen() -- To run the server

3. Create an app/ directory inside src/. This directory will house your routes.
4. To create a route, add a route.luau file inside a directory within app/. The directory name becomes the base route.

For example, to create a route at /, create src/app/route.luau:

local Nova = require("@path/to/nova")

local App = {}

function App.Get()
    return Nova.response.json({ msg = "Hello, Nova" })
end

return App

The module must export properties named after HTTP methods: Get, Post, Put, Patch, and Delete. You can define them as functions:

local App = {}

App.Get = function()
    return Nova.response.json({ msg = "Hello, Nova" })
end

return App

Core Features

• Filesystem Routing: Routes are automatically mapped to the directory structure of the app folder.
• Pattern Matching: Native support for dynamic segments using [params] syntax.
• Middleware Pipeline: Functional middleware chaining for global and route-specific logic.
• Unified Response Utility: Standardized handling for JSON and HTML content types.
• Environment Management: Automatic .env loading and process injection.
• Integrated Logger: Colored terminal output for request monitoring and debugging.

Routing Conventions

Nova follows a predictable mapping from the filesystem to the URL path:

Path	Filesystem Map
/	src/app/route.luau
/users	src/app/users/route.luau
/posts/	src/app/posts/[id]/route.luau

Middleware Chaining

Utilize the chain helper to apply logic sequentially before a request reaches the final handler:

-- route.luau
local Nova = require("@path/to/nova")

local function validate(req, next)
    if not req.headers["x-api-key"] then
        return Nova.response.json({ error = "Forbidden" }, { status = 403 })
    end
    next()
end

Route.Get = Nova.chain({ validate }, function(req)
    return Nova.response.json({ data = "Authorized access" })
end)

More info about middlewares soon.