Developer Experience Recipes¶

spoonfeed provides 7 developer experience recipes covering local development, configuration validation, data tooling, SDK generation, and admin panels. These recipes reduce friction during development by automating environment setup, data generation, and client SDK creation.

Recommended for all projects

config-validation — catches missing environment variables at startup
docker-compose-dev — one-command local development environment
database-seeding + database-factories — realistic test and dev data

Dev Container¶

VS Code Dev Container configuration for a fully configured development environment.


ID	`devcontainer`
Compatible with	All project types

Usage: Open the project in VS Code and select "Reopen in Container" for a ready-to-go environment. Docker Compose services (database, Redis, etc.) start automatically with the container. Port forwarding, extensions, and environment are pre-configured.

Pairs well with: docker-compose-dev

Docker Compose Dev¶

One-command local dev environment with hot reload.


ID	`docker-compose-dev`
Compatible with	HTTP API, Microservice, Scheduled Worker, Full-Stack, Monorepo

Usage:

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up

Services included:

Service	Port	Description
App	3000	NestJS with hot reload
Debug	9229	Node.js inspector
PostgreSQL	5432	Database
Redis	6379	Cache
Adminer	8080	Database management UI

Config Schema Validation¶

Validate environment variables at startup with typed Zod schemas.


ID	`config-validation`
Dependencies	`zod`
Compatible with	All project types

Usage: Environment variables are validated at startup using Zod schemas in src/config/env.validation.ts. Add new env vars to the schema. The app fails fast with descriptive errors if validation fails. Use the EnvConfig type for typed config access.

Tip

This recipe catches misconfigured environments at startup instead of at runtime, preventing partial failures in production.

Database Seeding¶

Database seed command for populating development data.


ID	`database-seeding`
Compatible with	All project types

Usage: Run pnpm seed to populate the database. Seed files live in src/database/seeds/. Each seed class implements the Seeder interface. Seeds are idempotent and safe to run multiple times.

Database Factories¶

Test data factories for database entities.


ID	`database-factories`
Compatible with	All project types

Usage: Use factories to create test data in unit and integration tests:

const user = UserFactory.create({ name: 'Test User' });

Factories live in src/database/factories/. Each entity has a corresponding factory with realistic default values. Override any field in the create() call.

SDK Generation¶

Auto-generate client SDKs from the OpenAPI spec.


ID	`sdk-generation`
Dev dependencies	`@openapitools/openapi-generator-cli`
Compatible with	All project types

Usage: Run pnpm generate:sdk to generate a TypeScript client SDK from the OpenAPI specification. Output goes to generated/sdk/. Commit the generated SDK or publish it as a separate npm package.

Note

Do not manually edit files in generated/sdk/. Regenerate after changing API endpoints.

AdminJS¶

Auto-generated CRUD admin panel with authentication.


ID	`adminjs`
Dependencies	`adminjs` `@adminjs/nestjs` `@adminjs/express` `express` `express-session` `express-formidable`
Dev dependencies	`@types/express-session`
Compatible with	HTTP API, Full-Stack, Monorepo

Environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
`ADMIN_EMAIL`	`admin@example.com`	AdminJS login email
`ADMIN_PASSWORD`	`changeme`	AdminJS login password

Usage: Admin panel is available at /admin. Register entity resources in admin.module.ts to expose CRUD operations. Authentication uses the ADMIN_EMAIL/ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variables.

Warning

Change the default admin credentials before deploying to any non-local environment.