zero-mock

zero-mock is a zero-config Node.js CLI that turns any JSON file into a persistent, production-grade REST API in seconds. It includes an interactive setup wizard, a high-contrast brutalist UI, and smart schema inference with automatic validation.

Built for frontend developers and architects who need a realistic, stable backend for prototypes, demos, and integration tests without the overhead of database orchestration.

Key Features

• Zero-config — your JSON file is your database and API definition.
• Interactive wizard — run zero-mock to start the setup guide.
• Smart validation — automatically infers Zod schemas from your data to validate POST, PUT, and PATCH requests.
• Atomic and secure — cross-platform atomic writes (Windows-safe) with file-locking to prevent data corruption.
• Advanced REST — supports filtering (_gte, _lte, _like), sorting (_sort, _order), and pagination (_page, _limit).
• Realistic simulation — simulate network latency and configure custom CORS origins/methods.
• Watch mode — hot-reloads data from disk on manual file changes without a server restart.
• Session memory — remembers your last used configuration for a faster workflow.

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Installation

Global

npm install -g @xirconsss/zero-mock

Run the CLI as zero-mock.

One-off with npx

npx @xirconsss/zero-mock

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Usage

1. Interactive mode (recommended)

Run the command without arguments to launch the setup wizard:

zero-mock

2. Manual CLI

Pass flags to skip the wizard:

zero-mock -f ./data.json -p 8080 -w -d 200

Flag	Description
-f, --file	Path to the source JSON file.
-p, --port	HTTP port (default 3000, must be 1024–65535).
-d, --delay	Delay every request by X milliseconds (default 0).
-w, --watch	Enable hot-reloading on manual file changes.
--cors-origin	Comma-separated allowed origins (default *).
--reset	Clear saved wizard configuration and exit.

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Auto-generated API

The tool generates full CRUD endpoints for every top-level key in your JSON (e.g., users, posts).

Method	Path	Description
GET	/{resource}	List items (supports filtering, sorting, paging).
POST	/{resource}	Create item (auto-id + schema validation).
GET	/{resource}/{id}	Return a single item by id.
PUT	/{resource}/{id}	Replace item (schema validation).
PATCH	/{resource}/{id}	Partial update (schema validation).
DELETE	/{resource}/{id}	Remove item.

Advanced List Features

Filtering

• GET /posts?category=tech — exact match
• GET /posts?views_gte=100 — greater than or equal
• GET /posts?title_like=hello — case-insensitive search

Sorting

• GET /posts?_sort=createdAt&_order=desc

Pagination

• GET /posts?_page=1&_limit=10
• Returns an X-Total-Count header and a wrapped { data, pagination } object.

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JSON Structure

The root must be an object, and every resource must be an array.

{
  "users": [
    { "id": 1, "name": "Alice", "role": "admin" },
    { "id": 2, "name": "Bob" }
  ]
}

Note: zero-mock automatically infers that role is an optional string based on the items above.

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Development

1. Clone the repo.
2. npm install
3. npm run dev (runs with ts-node)
4. npm run build (compiles to dist/)

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Publishing (Maintainers)

This project uses semantic-release for fully automated versioning and npm publishing.

1. Ensure your commits follow the Conventional Commits format (e.g., feat:, fix:, chore:).
2. Push or open a PR against the main branch.
3. GitHub Actions handles testing, version bumping, changelog generation, and publishing to npm.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Links

• Repository: github.com/xircons/zero-mock
• Issues: github.com/xircons/zero-mock/issues