Installation

Install NestJS CRUD and its dependencies to start building automatic CRUD APIs.

Prerequisites

Before installing NestJS CRUD, ensure you have:

• Node.js 14.x or higher
• An existing NestJS project (v9.x or higher recommended)
• TypeScript 4.6 or higher

If you don’t have a NestJS project yet, create one using:

npm i -g @nestjs/cli
nest new my-project

Install core packages

NestJS CRUD requires the core package along with class-transformer and class-validator for request validation.

npm

npm install @nestjsx/crud class-transformer class-validator

yarn add @nestjsx/crud class-transformer class-validator

pnpm add @nestjsx/crud class-transformer class-validator

Install TypeORM integration

To use NestJS CRUD with TypeORM (recommended), install the TypeORM packages:

npm

npm install @nestjsx/crud-typeorm @nestjs/typeorm typeorm

yarn add @nestjsx/crud-typeorm @nestjs/typeorm typeorm

pnpm add @nestjsx/crud-typeorm @nestjs/typeorm typeorm

Install database driver

Install the appropriate database driver for your database:

PostgreSQL (npm)

npm install pg

yarn add pg

pnpm add pg

npm install mysql2

yarn add mysql2

pnpm add mysql2

Configure TypeORM

Create or update your TypeORM configuration in your app module:

app.module.ts

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { TypeOrmModule } from '@nestjs/typeorm';

@Module({
  imports: [
    TypeOrmModule.forRoot({
      type: 'postgres',
      host: 'localhost',
      port: 5432,
      username: 'your_username',
      password: 'your_password',
      database: 'your_database',
      entities: [__dirname + '/**/*.entity{.ts,.js}'],
      synchronize: true, // Set to false in production
    }),
  ],
})
export class AppModule {}

Set synchronize: false in production environments. Use migrations instead to manage database schema changes.

Optional: Install request builder

If you’re building a frontend application and want type-safe query building, install the request builder package:

npm

npm install @nestjsx/crud-request

yarn add @nestjsx/crud-request

pnpm add @nestjsx/crud-request

The request builder allows you to construct API queries in your client code:

frontend-example.ts

import { RequestQueryBuilder } from '@nestjsx/crud-request';

const query = RequestQueryBuilder.create()
  .setFilter({ field: 'name', operator: '$cont', value: 'Tech' })
  .setLimit(10)
  .sortBy({ field: 'name', order: 'ASC' })
  .query();

// Result: filter=name||$cont||Tech&limit=10&sort=name,ASC
fetch(`/api/companies?${query}`);

Verify installation

Verify that all packages are installed correctly:

npm list @nestjsx/crud @nestjsx/crud-typeorm

You should see output similar to:

my-project@1.0.0 /path/to/my-project
├── @nestjsx/crud@5.0.0-alpha.3
└── @nestjsx/crud-typeorm@5.0.0-alpha.3

TypeScript configuration

Ensure your tsconfig.json has the following compiler options enabled:

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true
  }
}

These options are required for decorators and metadata reflection to work properly.

Next steps

Quickstart

Now that you have NestJS CRUD installed, follow the quickstart guide to build your first CRUD API in minutes.